the bluhamster files

Existence - Dont you have better things to do?

2008-09-11T10:39:00.014+10:00

How did this man manage to capture my thoughts so succinctly?

Is he stalking me telepathically?

Dik Cheney does, maybe this sprong has mastered the ancient art of Purekrapp from his vice-presidential overlord.

Phew, that was close. I emerged from my specially built anti-black hole shelter today after several months of fretting about the inevitable destruction of the universe brought about by those irresponsible Swiss and french egg heads.

Learning, whats it ever done for us, I'll tell you, its kept me locked in a very small room eating my own waste products (I did stock up on tinned foods, but didn't stock up on can openers, they don't teach you shit like that in survival school or if they did I wasn't paying much attention). We all know that those scientific creations like black holes work by sucking in light, all light, even neon and those environmentally friendly ones, so the trick to escaping their deadly zombie inducing rays is to paint every inch of your shelter a very deep shade of black, wearing nothing but black and getting up in the morning (or whatever time of day i get up, its all the same when every things black) and applying heavy goth makeup. The really hard part is your eyeballs, and they are vital, coz when the universe is sucked into the hole the last thing you want is to open your eyes and have the goo contained within to be sucked in with it. Commonsense I know, but you would be surprised how many people don't pay attention to the little details.

Speaking of black holes, Barrack seems to have fallen in one since the Scumbag Collective Meeting a week or so ago. Am I worried? Well yes, constantly, about shit that you probably don't pay any attention to, like killer bees and disposable shavers with 5 blades (can they kill?), but not about the poll bounce on the Palin/Mccain ticket.

That was just a given, even a total loser like Walter Mondale (last seen eating waffles, choking on waffles and calling for someone who knows the Heimlich maneuver, big news in its day, some say as big as the abortion debate as they are both controversial medical procedures forced upon people by communists) got huge bumps in their poll numbers (Mondale even overtook Regan in the polls for a few weeks). But fuck it, these things even out, especially as there is a reason why the Republicans are doing their damnedest to hide their lieing chromosome on stilts from doing anything but give the same speech to the same crowd over and over again. This ploy works for a short while, but then comes the time for questions to be answered in any forum except Fox News (We lie, you gulp and swallow).

The time to panic is not now, with some 50 days to go, the time to panic is the day after the election when the supreme court loaded with drunken whore republican "strict constructionists" hands the Palin/McSame ticket the electoral college votes in the face of Diebolds "foolproof" voting machines showing a swing of 100% to anyone scheming to rob the public purse under the Republican umbrella.

"We cant kill our way to victory."
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

No but we can lie. No doubt the Palin/McCain camp will ensure that the press tag the (way above pictured) bozo as an Obama official spokesman rather than a man who rather pointedly speaks the truth.

I am so giddy about the US election, its all that we hoped for, a demented old Washington insider who "reluctantly" discusses his time as a POW at least twenty times a speech. Who talks of honor, yet spent his time in the military dropping bombs on civilians, talks of honor while lieing through his teeth and producing ads that equate policies protecting kids from kiddie fiddlers with forcing pre-schoolers to learn the correct technique for giving blowjobs.

Who tells you he "knows how to win wars", ignoring the fact that he has only ever participated in losing wars, who claims to know how to capture Osama, yet refuses to put country first and just do it.

A "maverick" who walks so closely in the Bush footsteps that only his proctologist could tell them apart, who has railed against "earmarks" then chooses the queen of "earmarks" who in turn blatantly lies through her godfearing teeth about basically her entire lifestory, but especially about the earmarks she now no longer has ever heard of.

Its not often that Alaska makes the news for the right reasons, today is no different, so go through the below for a very well informed collection of Alaskan treats.

http://mudflats.wordpress.com/

also released today, the future of the USA's best dressed pre-jail festering sores.

http://www.crewsmostcorrupt.org/

Yep, The Pitbull to Nowhere's mentor, Stevens is one of the tops in corruption.

From this point on the November election is just going to get weirder, but as the Palin/McSame spokes bubble said "this is not a campaign about issues" its about political porn, and I am just about to dive headlong, tongue out in to the bushy muff of a truly twisted, ragged whore. Wish me luck and please send a case of mints for after.

hippy time

2008-06-06T14:45:00.002+10:00

IT'S JUST A THOUGHT
(Creedence Clearwater Revival)

Intro : D Dmaj7 Bm A Amaj7 F#m E A E A

E
It's just a thought
A E
But I've noticed something strange,
D Dmaj7 Bm
Getting harder to explain;
A Amaj7 F#m
All the years are passing bye and bye,
E A E
Still I don't know what makes it go;
G D A
Who said to wait and you'll see?

E
It's just a thought
A E
But I wondered if you knew
D Dmaj7 Bm
That the song up there is you.
A Amaj7 F#m
They can't take it from you if you don’t
E A E A E A E
give it away, don't give it away, Ooh, It's given away

E D Dmaj7 C D E F# A E A

E
It's just a thought
A E
But the word has come too late
D Dmaj7 Bm
That a bad idea will take
A Amaj7 F#m
Just about a lifetime to explain,
E A E
And don't you see, good one's gonna be much longer;
G D A
Who's gonna wait, just to see?

E D Dmaj7 C D E F# A E A E A B

Obama's Victory Speech (history is made)

2008-06-04T13:59:00.003+10:00

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/06/03/barack-obama-the-next-president-of-the-united-states/

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/june3rd/

(for those who can still read, the transcipt)

Tonight, after fifty-four hard-fought contests, our primary season has finally come to an end.

Sixteen months have passed since we first stood together on the steps of the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois. Thousands of miles have been traveled. Millions of voices have been heard. And because of what you said - because you decided that change must come to Washington; because you believed that this year must be different than all the rest; because you chose to listen not to your doubts or your fears but to your greatest hopes and highest aspirations, tonight we mark the end of one historic journey with the beginning of another - a journey that will bring a new and better day to America. Tonight, I can stand before you and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for President of the United States.

I want to thank every American who stood with us over the course of this campaign - through the good days and the bad; from the snows of Cedar Rapids to the sunshine of Sioux Falls. And tonight I also want to thank the men and woman who took this journey with me as fellow candidates for President.

At this defining moment for our nation, we should be proud that our party put forth one of the most talented, qualified field of individuals ever to run for this office. I have not just competed with them as rivals, I have learned from them as friends, as public servants, and as patriots who love America and are willing to work tirelessly to make this country better. They are leaders of this party, and leaders that America will turn to for years to come.

That is particularly true for the candidate who has traveled further on this journey than anyone else. Senator Hillary Clinton has made history in this campaign not just because she's a woman who has done what no woman has done before, but because she's a leader who inspires millions of Americans with her strength, her courage, and her commitment to the causes that brought us here tonight.

We've certainly had our differences over the last sixteen months. But as someone who's shared a stage with her many times, I can tell you that what gets Hillary Clinton up in the morning - even in the face of tough odds - is exactly what sent her and Bill Clinton to sign up for their first campaign in Texas all those years ago; what sent her to work at the Children's Defense Fund and made her fight for health care as First Lady; what led her to the United States Senate and fueled her barrier-breaking campaign for the presidency - an unyielding desire to improve the lives of ordinary Americans, no matter how difficult the fight may be. And you can rest assured that when we finally win the battle for universal health care in this country, she will be central to that victory. When we transform our energy policy and lift our children out of poverty, it will be because she worked to help make it happen. Our party and our country are better off because of her, and I am a better candidate for having had the honor to compete with Hillary Rodham Clinton.

There are those who say that this primary has somehow left us weaker and more divided. Well I say that because of this primary, there are millions of Americans who have cast their ballot for the very first time. There are Independents and Republicans who understand that this election isn't just about the party in charge of Washington, it's about the need to change Washington. There are young people, and African-Americans, and Latinos, and women of all ages who have voted in numbers that have broken records and inspired a nation.

All of you chose to support a candidate you believe in deeply. But at the end of the day, we aren't the reason you came out and waited in lines that stretched block after block to make your voice heard. You didn't do that because of me or Senator Clinton or anyone else. You did it because you know in your hearts that at this moment - a moment that will define a generation - we cannot afford to keep doing what we've been doing. We owe our children a better future. We owe our country a better future. And for all those who dream of that future tonight, I say - let us begin the work together. Let us unite in common effort to chart a new course for America.

In just a few short months, the Republican Party will arrive in St. Paul with a very different agenda. They will come here to nominate John McCain, a man who has served this country heroically. I honor that service, and I respect his many accomplishments, even if he chooses to deny mine. My differences with him are not personal; they are with the policies he has proposed in this campaign.

Because while John McCain can legitimately tout moments of independence from his party in the past, such independence has not been the hallmark of his presidential campaign.
It's not change when John McCain decided to stand with George Bush ninety-five percent of the time, as he did in the Senate last year.

It's not change when he offers four more years of Bush economic policies that have failed to create well-paying jobs, or insure our workers, or help Americans afford the skyrocketing cost of college - policies that have lowered the real incomes of the average American family, widened the gap between Wall Street and Main Street, and left our children with a mountain of debt.

And it's not change when he promises to continue a policy in Iraq that asks everything of our brave men and women in uniform and nothing of Iraqi politicians - a policy where all we look for are reasons to stay in Iraq, while we spend billions of dollars a month on a war that isn't making the American people any safer.

So I'll say this - there are many words to describe John McCain's attempt to pass off his embrace of George Bush's policies as bipartisan and new. But change is not one of them.

Change is a foreign policy that doesn't begin and end with a war that should've never been authorized and never been waged. I won't stand here and pretend that there are many good options left in Iraq, but what's not an option is leaving our troops in that country for the next hundred years - especially at a time when our military is overstretched, our nation is isolated, and nearly every other threat to America is being ignored.

We must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in - but start leaving we must. It's time for Iraqis to take responsibility for their future. It's time to rebuild our military and give our veterans the care they need and the benefits they deserve when they come home. It's time to refocus our efforts on al Qaeda's leadership and Afghanistan, and rally the world against the common threats of the 21st century - terrorism and nuclear weapons; climate change and poverty; genocide and disease. That's what change is.

Change is realizing that meeting today's threats requires not just our firepower, but the power of our diplomacy - tough, direct diplomacy where the President of the United States isn't afraid to let any petty dictator know where America stands and what we stand for. We must once again have the courage and conviction to lead the free world. That is the legacy of Roosevelt, and Truman, and Kennedy. That's what the American people want. That's what change is.

Change is building an economy that rewards not just wealth, but the work and workers who created it. It's understanding that the struggles facing working families can't be solved by spending billions of dollars on more tax breaks for big corporations and wealthy CEOs, but by giving a the middle-class a tax break, and investing in our crumbling infrastructure, and transforming how we use energy, and improving our schools, and renewing our commitment to science and innovation. It's understanding that fiscal responsibility and shared prosperity can go hand-in-hand, as they did when Bill Clinton was President.

John McCain has spent a lot of time talking about trips to Iraq in the last few weeks, but maybe if he spent some time taking trips to the cities and towns that have been hardest hit by this economy - cities in Michigan, and Ohio, and right here in Minnesota - he'd understand the kind of change that people are looking for.

Maybe if he went to Iowa and met the student who works the night shift after a full day of class and still can't pay the medical bills for a sister who's ill, he'd understand that she can't afford four more years of a health care plan that only takes care of the healthy and wealthy. She needs us to pass health care plan that guarantees insurance to every American who wants it and brings down premiums for every family who needs it. That's the change we need.

Maybe if he went to Pennsylvania and met the man who lost his job but can't even afford the gas to drive around and look for a new one, he'd understand that we can't afford four more years of our addiction to oil from dictators. That man needs us to pass an energy policy that works with automakers to raise fuel standards, and makes corporations pay for their pollution, and oil companies invest their record profits in a clean energy future - an energy policy that will create millions of new jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced. That's the change we need.

And maybe if he spent some time in the schools of South Carolina or St. Paul or where he spoke tonight in New Orleans, he'd understand that we can't afford to leave the money behind for No Child Left Behind; that we owe it to our children to invest in early childhood education; to recruit an army of new teachers and give them better pay and more support; to finally decide that in this global economy, the chance to get a college education should not be a privilege for the wealthy few, but the birthright of every American. That's the change we need in America. That's why I'm running for President.

The other side will come here in September and offer a very different set of policies and positions, and that is a debate I look forward to. It is a debate the American people deserve. But what you don't deserve is another election that's governed by fear, and innuendo, and division. What you won't hear from this campaign or this party is the kind of politics that uses religion as a wedge, and patriotism as a bludgeon - that sees our opponents not as competitors to challenge, but enemies to demonize. Because we may call ourselves Democrats and Republicans, but we are Americans first. We are always Americans first.

Despite what the good Senator from Arizona said tonight, I have seen people of differing views and opinions find common cause many times during my two decades in public life, and I have brought many together myself. I've walked arm-in-arm with community leaders on the South Side of Chicago and watched tensions fade as black, white, and Latino fought together for good jobs and good schools. I've sat across the table from law enforcement and civil rights advocates to reform a criminal justice system that sent thirteen innocent people to death row. And I've worked with friends in the other party to provide more children with health insurance and more working families with a tax break; to curb the spread of nuclear weapons and ensure that the American people know where their tax dollars are being spent; and to reduce the influence of lobbyists who have all too often set the agenda in Washington.

In our country, I have found that this cooperation happens not because we agree on everything, but because behind all the labels and false divisions and categories that define us; beyond all the petty bickering and point-scoring in Washington, Americans are a decent, generous, compassionate people, united by common challenges and common hopes. And every so often, there are moments which call on that fundamental goodness to make this country great again.
So it was for that band of patriots who declared in a Philadelphia hall the formation of a more perfect union; and for all those who gave on the fields of Gettysburg and Antietam their last full measure of devotion to save that same union.

So it was for the Greatest Generation that conquered fear itself, and liberated a continent from tyranny, and made this country home to untold opportunity and prosperity.

So it was for the workers who stood out on the picket lines; the women who shattered glass ceilings; the children who braved a Selma bridge for freedom's cause.

So it has been for every generation that faced down the greatest challenges and the most improbable odds to leave their children a world that's better, and kinder, and more just.
And so it must be for us.

America, this is our moment. This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past. Our time to bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face. Our time to offer a new direction for the country we love.

The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth. This was the moment - this was the time - when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals. Thank you, God Bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America. Barack Obama is a Democratic Senator from Illinois and a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.

i got a foggy notion

2008-06-03T12:57:00.004+10:00

Will tomorrow be the day that Barack steps up to the plate and moves one step closer to ending the shameful Bush Regency. Once respected Senator McSame has no chance in hell of continuing the failure, here's why:

82% of Americans think the country is on the wrong track.
60+% think that the US should talk to their enemies (in other words engage in diplomacy)
consumer confidence at its lowest point since 1992.

it will be a slaughter for the GOP and I am sharpening the Halal blade as we speak. I'm still full of the audacity of hope that Hillary will climb on board as VP, but only time and Barack paying off her debts will resolve that one.

“As far as Colorado Republicans are concerned, we all will support McCain, but he’s not our first choice,” said Summer Vanderbilt, a University of Colorado at Colorado Springs student and alternate delegate to the Republican National Convention

tales from creation

in the US:
22 percent believe President Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance.
30 percent believe Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.
23 percent believe they've been in the presence of a ghost.
18 percent believe the sun revolves around the Earth.
12 percent believe Barack Obama is a Muslim.

fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on the education system and Fox news.

The rise of creationism in Britain to the point where four out of 10 Britons believe it to be the literal truth – as well as the idea being taught in state-approved schools – has spread alarm throughout the scientific community.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-rally-against-creationist-superstition-837832.html

Go on at least read it, be inspired, then laugh your arse off over the "proof", it really is hilarious, until a child gets taught: warning contains symbols for credit cards, clicking on them does not bring you closer to Jesus, only bankruptcy.

http://www.disprovedarwin.com/DisproveDarwinNowAvailable.html

For all you "educationalist" egg heads, here is a University that may suit, get a degree in biology in less time than it takes to get a pass to flip burgers at Macca's. All you have to do is renounce any semblance of science and acknowledge that Darwin was most likely Satan hiding behind a fake beard. Hint: answer to all difficult questions on exams is "God did it"

http://www.icr.edu/biology/

viewpoint discrimination? political correctness? I know you peeple are fcuking nuts. That Dick Cheney is a total scumbag is a view point, Dick Cheney is a liar who shot a guy in the face and profits from war is a fact.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Education/Default.aspx?id=126854

tales from the drug war

Here are a couple of simple facts:

the only reason "criminals" control the illegal drug trade is the enormous profits that can be made, yet on an ordinary suburban block, you can grow most drugs from seeds at naught more than the cost of the upkeep of a tomato plant.

speed: if its good enough for the US Air force....

http://www.botgard.ucla.edu/html/botanytextbooks/economicbotany/Ephedra/index.html

u r passing another wild eyed Linfox representative.

opiates: poppy's grow wonderfully well in these temperate climes and would supply an addict all they need, the government could then funnel those billions they currently spend on policing/courts/prisons on something useful like rehab.

Spliff: a three to five plant limit would supply the average smoker with his/her yearly supply, and get them into the funny sunny world of gardening, that should also cut down on their three pack a day Doritos habit.

cocaine: the cocoa plant, grown, worshipped and used for a thousand years in sth America, to give you an idea of the profits a man may make from this straggly plant, a perfectly legal $300 bottle of liquid cocaine straight from the labs of Merck or Pfizer and used in the dental industry can sell for as much as $10,000. Tempted? Consult the brush your dentist uses.

http://www.siu.edu/~ebl/leaflets/coca.htm

Hallucinogenics: mushies grow wild throughout the hills of Melbourne (do get someone who knows what they are looking for), peyote and all those bizarre cacti will grow wonderfully, if a trifle slowly, in a simple glass house and get your rocks to the place of offness very nicely, thank you very much.

Eckies: oh you love-up generation, you will need to at least finish the first two years of your chem degree, but the good news is that, yes, you can grow the plant to get you started:

Synthesis Industrial scale methamphetamine/MDMA factory in Cikande, Indonesia
Safrole, a colorless or slightly yellow oil, extracted from the root-bark or the fruit of sassafras plants is the primary precursor for all manufacture of MDMA. There are numerous synthetic methods available in the literature to convert safrole into MDMA via different intermediates. One common route is via the MDP2P (3,4-methylenedioxyphenyl-2-propanone, also known as piperonyl acetone) intermediate. This intermediate can be produced in at least two different ways. One method is to isomerize safrole in the presence of a strong base to isosafrole and then oxidize isosafrole to MDP2P. Another, reportedly better method, is to make use of the Wacker process to oxidize safrole directly to the MDP2P (3,4-methylenedioxy phenyl-2-propanone) intermediate. This can be done with a palladium catalyst. Once the MDP2P intermediate has been produced it is then consumed via a reductive amination to form MDMA as the product.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDMA

So remind me why I shell out my hard earneds, and why its only the cops and the crims who are reaping Exxon styled windfall profits......

My name is Michael Short. I am here because in 1992 I was sentenced for selling crack cocaine. Before that, I had never spent a day in prison. I came from a good family. I had no criminal history. I was not a violent offender. But I was sentenced to serve nearly 20 years. I was 21 years old.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/27/AR2008052702531.html?hpid=topnews

ONE of the nation's top criminal investigators in charge of fighting organised crime has been arrested for allegedly masterminding a plan to cook up the nation's biggest batch of the deadly designer drug ice.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23801058-601,00.html

The funniest part of the story: the drugs have mysteriously disapeared...

Tales from the occupied territories.

I feel stupid that I need to say this, but I 100% support the right of Israel to exist, I support the right of Israel to exist within her own borders, not other peoples. I do not in any way support the religious extremists settler movement, or any of their supporter base, such as war criminal Ariel Sharon or Mr 2% Olmert or the woman who has been angling for his job for the last year or so, Tzipi Livni..period.fullstop.

Peace in our time means returning the Golan Heights to Syria, and for Israel to return to her own borders, 1967 style or at the very least a genuine equitable carve up of the occupied territories.

till then, everything is tainted.

Dozens of skeletons from the early Islamic period were discovered during excavations near the Temple Mount, on a site slated for construction by a right-wing Jewish organization.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/988803.html

the soon to be indicted Mr 2% speaks:

"Israeli sovereignty over historic and holy Jerusalem, will last for eternity," Mr Olmert said.

Plans announced by the Olmert Government to build 884 new homes in two Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem to mark the anniversary drew new criticism from both the United Nations and key ally the United States.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/03/2263354.htm?section=justin

so, you think therefore you am.

2008-05-09T11:02:00.006+10:00

Re: Bill Henson and his imminent arrest

my only comment on this ridiculous matter (i am busy watching porn, well watching, its a contact sport really), I would believe the outrage, the charges, the reaction of Chairman Rudd etc if they raided the offices of Vogue, Elle, Dolly, every advertising agency etc each time they placed a 12-16 in one of their products. Same goes for all those wonderful Fashion Weeks where I have had the dubious pleasure of chatting to beautiful 15 year olds as they tune up their attire. Until then it is just a vacuous load of puritan morality masquerading as law enforcement, no doubt driven by those wonderful friends of the vacuous, the religious right

Me, I find Playboy and Penthouse offensive, filled as they are with the products of the surgeons knife and the photoshop brush.

Current Moral Panics Sweeping the Nation:

1. Binge Drinking:

I love nostalgia, the six o'clock swill, god that was a great time, 5.50pm order as many beers as will fit on the bar and then drink them all before the bell goes to signal "Fuck Orf". Now they were the times when this land was filled with "Authentic Australians". I'm not old enough to have lived it, but I'm sure that it was conducive to civilized behavior in our model citizen's. Kids today, they just have no idea and so should be forced to do exactly as anybody over 50 tells them and if they don't obey instantly, they should have their neon coloured skate boards dismantled in front of them. Better yet, anyone who has over three drinks in the first hour should be jailed and sodomised to teach them the meaning good old fashioned morals.

What a complete load of fcuking twaddle. Let me drink and keep your fucking morals out of my vodka and I promise not to piss in the holy water at your next evangelical mystical experience. Better yet, just fuck off, completely.

1a. 2.00am

the truth is that the best people don't go out until 1.00am, the best time to roam the streets is after midnight, I mean, the drugs dont kick in till then and if I can get into Geddes Lane then I shall die on the streets of dehydration. Why do you wish to kill me? Why?

I don't want to be stuck in the Pony after the last band has finished at 2.30-3.00am, I wanna get high, I wanna be free, god I need a drink.

2. Ice

If you really cared about your kids then you would legalise drugs, then they could have the same clean high quality drugs like long dead UK PM Anthony Eden and US fighter pilots are given. When drugs are criminalised, then only criminals will supply drugs and they don't always have the best quality control mechanisms.

3. Anything to do with people under the age of 18

I agree, jail the little bitches til they see sense at age 24.

4. the price of oil

mmmmmmm lets see, you voted a few years back for a man who promised you low interest rates, even though he had no control over them. Now your bitchin about the Ruddsters high cost of oil, even though he's got nothing to do with setting the price. What the fuck are you morons talking about, either bring down global capitalism or fuck off back to whatever beaver you crawled out of.

Are you all sorry that instead of investing in alternate fuels and public transport you have been voting for tax cuts and the lobbyist's for the fossil fuel industry. No, you cant see the nexus? Holy fcuk batman.

5. Pensioners

Has there ever been a day when an old fart hasn't had something to complain about? No, welcome to the real world.

6. dredging the bay

despite the fact that our beautiful bay has been used and abused for a hundred years, the Blue Wedges folk would have you believe that it is "pristine". Bullshit, lets get the dredging out the way and the bay will heal itself, its what nature does. Taking a photo of a dead fish and then telling me that every fish the bay looks exactly the same will not make me believe that maybe you are hyping a threat to WMD Cheney standards. The mushroom cloud is not imminent, its shittake.

7. sheep's bums

having had the rather scarring task of putting a bullet in the head of flyblown sheep, I would ask the hysterical folks of PETA to re-consider. I am with them re: battery hens, battery cattle etc, I do believe that animal welfare in our food chain is of vital concern, I am a carnivore who does care. But....ahhh fuk it, I just hate sanctimonious friggin vegos, that's why this is here. Fcuk PETA.

8. Fat Kids

lets be sensible about this, if we publicly kill a few, maybe the rest will get the message about exercise. I know my ample proportions are the result of love, not hate and each inch contains a mound of lovely comestibles.

9. Muslims

When they are not trying to kill us, they are mocking our values by existing. This needs to be stopped, I congratulate the citzens of Camden on thier way of sidestepping intelligence through bureaucratic means, its true within every copy of the Koran there is a Dik Smith guide to bomb making. I find it so hard as an atheist defending superstition, but I will defend to the death (or a serious sprain) your right to be free to make the choice.

The agents of intolerance must be exposed for what they are, and what they are hiding behind. To those fcukwits who wrap themselves behind our flag and shriek about "values", just try to be honest and come out and give me your racism. I wont respect you for holding the thought, but I will uphold your right to be a total waste of good air.

....................................

"If you just let me go to Pyongyang, I'll get you a deal," the career Foreign Service officer said, prompting others to roll their eyes and move on.
In the twilight of the Bush presidency, the nuclear agreement that Hill has tirelessly pursued over the past three years has emerged as Bush's best hope for a lasting foreign policy success. In the process, Hill has become the public face of an extraordinary 180-degree policy shift on North Korea, from confrontation to accommodation.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/25/AR2008052502805.html

McCain: "It's clear who Hamas wants to be the next President."

Here's how you can help in the War on Terror, a practical guide to keeping your good self out of Gitmo....

http://trackingtransience.net./

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/15-06/ps_transparency

...................................................
2,784 people killed, 119,400 injured and over $172,038,000 in economic damages
Here are 16,820 people who were harmed by someone not thinking critically.

http://whatstheharm.net/kids.html

Not all information is created equal. Some of it is correct. Some of it is incorrect. Some of it is carefully balanced. Some of it is heavily biased. Some of it is just plain crazy.
....................................................

just?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-newman/drug-war-madness-smoke-a_b_103911.html

.....................................
Re: the Rudd Leaks and the end of his honeymoon
I have two theories, neither really worthwhile.

a/ the other members of Rudds Cabinet are getting a little tired of being puppets and reading from Rudds prepared statements, rather than doing what they are paid for, making and implementing policy. You can only micro-manage so much before the people you are micro-managing start to resent the puppeteers strings.

b/ there are a thousand good reasons why after a long time in opposition and you gain power that in the first days in office you do a lot of bloodletting amongst your senior staff inherited from the previous administration. Howard did after all make an artform of placing like minded liberals in senior policy positions within the bureaucracy, and Rudd made a big play of not getting rid of them. Now he is paying the price. Unsheathe those knives pretty boy, the blood on the carpet will only make you look stronger, the bodies piling up beneath the stairs will remind the public service that Stalin was not all beer and ice cream, but a bit of a cad when it came to HR. Bring on the night of the long knives.

If you blend these two together, I'm pretty sure I'm close to the stating the obvious.

hell who am i kidding, I am only posting coz I aint for a while. Holidays, they come in all varieties, colours, shades and creeds.

tune in, fuck off and change the laws

2008-04-18T16:48:00.002+10:00

the war on drugs

preaching to the converted, I know but surely one day, one day the bullshit will not flow and I will be free. Till then, just know that the facts are on your side, the falsehoods, the lies, the corruption, the pointeless hysteria masquerading as law, are all on the side of the self righteous.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=0HD6B94RURA&feature=related

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-lEm-IYuQU&feature=related

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=GVRUpmlEXJ4

iraq decoder 08

2008-04-11T11:14:00.003+10:00

significant progress: a long running joke, first used in 2003 then at every opportunity since, great for best mans speech's at weddings or to signify a mysterious gap between reality and preceding sentence.

progress: going backwards at a slower pace.

serious challenge: going backwards in an uncontrolled fashion

success: complete failure that can be made to look like the outcome was just as predicted eg Basra 2008

Turning Point: updated after test marketing found overuse syndrome, now refereed to as "convergence point". Use in Friedmans (6 monthly time period) essential for all future press releases.

consolidate recent security gains: as above, but generally used when reality has spiraled so far out of control and the Iraq War Marketing Department have identified body of 6 year old in photos as insurgent or terrorists. Iraq has been consolidated so many times it is surprising the entire country is not able to be contained within a 6 x 6 room.

"a free Iraq": an Iraqi who has fled to Denmark and been given a refugee visa. Once held post of trauma surgeon at Basra General, now sells kebabs at Copenhagen Docks (late shift 2am-10am).

stand by themselves: the ability of Iraqi's to kill other Iraqi's.

supporting role: to be used whenever Iraq Security Forces changes sides during "consolidation" operation and needs to have freedom bullets fired in their general direction by their US overlords.

100 years: the time it will take for historians to find something the Bush Administration did right. Also likely time frame for troop withdrawal.

experience: the ability to fail miserably over a lengthy period of time.

The troops: meat puppets dangling from political strings.

surge: dangling of meat puppets over hot coals until done. Can be used in place of actively thinking about policy, often used in conjunction with and/or in same sentence with "turning point", "progress", "significant progress" and leading brand of all in one toothpaste/tinea treatment.

evidence: mysterious cloud of hot gas masquerading as a "fact"

Jesus: vengeful Deity whom all Muslims will eventually be persuaded to follow.

Maliki government: strange multi lingual beast, known to be able to say one thing in English and the exact opposite in Arabic while maintaining that they are in fact the same thing. Rumoured to live in a cave in the green zone, emerging to "vote" before scurrying back to discussions on what they did not vote on. Known to eat American dollars and love Persian food.

national unity government: original name of Malaki Government before change by deed poll, still used by Fox News, so you know its gots to wrong.

“strong leader,” and a “good guy” with “deep determination.”: The Malaki Government when the Bush administration doesn't wish to listen to what the Malaki Government has proposed.

Iranian-backed militants: Friends of the Malaki government.

Green zone: large target in centre of Capitol city used for artillery practice only.

tie the hands of our commanders: a refusal to answer specific questions that may lead to embarrassing answers when asked by Congress. Also answer to any question which may stray from "stay the course" line of questioning.

impose artificial time lines for withdrawal: same as "don't ask, don't tell" policy or 2005 buzz word "benchmarks", a meaningless way to pad out a sentence in answer to a question you don't wish to answer.

burden worth bearing: either a naked 16 yo supermodel sitting on your face or a well worn cliche taken from an old pamphlet left over from the US war of independence. Churchillian in its resonance when applied to supermodel, used mostly when handing over multi-billion dollar cheque to Haliburton Subsidiary in Oval room at Whitehouse.

Iran (Iraqi): close ally and honored neighbouring country

Iran (US): monolithic evil force, killed JFK (photos provided) and Tupac (doll reenactment upon request) and scares young children with cloudy mushrooms. Was Hitler in a previous life. Also known use as a "mantra" for meditating neo-cons, replaces "Saddam" and "imminent threat".

Iranian-backed Shia groups: the Malaki Government

America will act to protect our interests and our troops: long running sitcom whose ratings are way down, after initial stirring successes since it was revealed that the same script has been recycled nightly for the past five years.

US out: catchy Iraqi pop song that has dominated the popular charts for many years, noted for its 70% harmonies and killer hook on chorus of "death to America" sung with high pitched 60% harmonies.

Curfews: Freedom timeouts called on misbehaving Iraqi citizens when ADHD drugs shipment into capitol has been hijacked.

long-term American military occupation: fictional tale that may well be based upon truth. see November 08

Senior Al-Qaeda Commander Dead: fictional account to be used in press releases when President has to answer questions he would rather not talk about. Tracks well with conservatives and makes them believe that it goes well with "staying the course" at all you can eat pancake house's. Another way of saying "whats that behind you?" when wishing to flee room.

Iraqi security forces: any Iraqi carrying a gun, but not yet shooting at Americans.

Insurgent (1): any Iraqi carrying a gun who may have shot at Americans.

Insurgent (2): any Iraqi shot by Americans. See IDF rules of engagement for explanation eg "we only shoot at terrorists, therefor anyone shot by the IDF is by definition a terrorist"

Benchmarks: long lost document now only seen in photocopy's of original press release from 2005, used primarily to stave off questions about "success" and "serious challengers", now seen as mythical products of fevered minds. Can be used as profane and obscene word when used by neo-cons and Bush Administration in relation to Democrats trying to "tie the hands of our commanders" with fact based reasoning.

cost: meaningless phrase like sacrifice or value/s, can be used in a thousand inventive ways but always ends the same way, with a cheque being forwarded to Dick Cheney's preferred charity, Haliburton.

Exit: narrow gap through a whirling phalanx of knives with a starving bear waiting at the end of a long dark tunnel. Not recommended for consideration or discussion by adults.

Exit Strategy: see above, but with more bears.

violence: multi-faceted word without precise meaning eg "A year ago, the president said we couldn't withdraw because there was too much violence," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). "Now he says we can't afford to withdraw because violence is down."

overall levels of violence: if you take a graph of all known geological time and place a red white and blue marker over the section inhabited by the Iraq war, you will see that there have been significantly less people eaten by dinosaurs in Iraq since beginning of 2003. Mark down under "success".

political-military calculus: clever turn of phrase by military man to deflect questioner from asking what the hell he means by "political-military calculus". Can you buy it in an electronics store and is it solar powered?

process of assessment: stalling for time

consolidation and evaluation: stalling for time while waiting to find blind watchmaker to repair Political-Military Calculus.

conditions on the ground: foot gazing exercise revealing baked on mud, sand, sperm and blood which in combination can be said to be chocolate or chocolate like in its palatable flavour.

September (1): a fictional date in the future when "process of assessment" will need to be "evaluated" according to "conditions on the ground", in reality the word September means March 2009 when "process of assessment" will need to be "evaluated" according to "conditions on the ground".

September (2): date plucked from an historical textbook, in Latin means; can we move onto the next question as I do not wish to answer that question.

"success is within reach": John McCain inserting tube of hemorrhoid cream without needing to call Joe Lieberman.

you can always be right...the john mccain way

2008-04-08T10:15:00.008+10:00

My Favourite new fact of the day on Mr Maverick, re: 1992, Cindy McCain:

At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said,

"You're getting a little thin up there."

McCain's face reddened, and he responded,

"At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt."

The McCain way, Three opposing points of view on Iraq.

John McCain, November 27, 2007:

PBS' Charlie Rose, McCain said, "I don't think so" when asked if South Korea "is an analogy of where Iraq might be ... in terms of an American presence over the next, say, 20, 25 years, that we will have a significant amount of troops there." McCain replied, "I don't think so." Rose then asked: "Even if there are no casualties?" McCain replied, "No. But I can see an American presence for a while. But eventually I think because of the nature of the society in Iraq and the religious aspects of it that America eventually withdraws."

McCain, January 3, 2008:

New Hampshire town hall meeting, a participant said to McCain: "President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for 50 years -- " and McCain interjected: "Maybe a hundred. We've been in South Korea; we've been in Japan for 60 years. We've been in South Korea for 50 years or so."

John McCain, April 2008

"I don't want to keep our troops in Iraq a minute longer than necessary to secure our interests there."

Its all so pointless John, no matter how many conflicting views you have, no matter how you craft your messages from audience to audience, no matter that you can hold all points at all times without the mainstream media bothering to ask how the fuck you can say the opposite of what you just blurted out, there is one thing you cant run from. 82%

82% is the number of Americans who believe that the country is heading in the wrong direction, this of course means that 18% of US citizens are currently in the last throws of some deadly brain withering disease.

This also means that those same 18% will look towards the testimony of General Patraeus and Bush mouthpiece, Ambassador Crocker as entirely new and thrilling, rather than what it was, just a reiteration of the same glossy brochure styling of how many different ways the word quagmire can be spun into something a bit more palatable to the 82%.

Without a doubt the most striking part of the testimony was just how one dimensional the outlook of the testimony is, the central and only tenant was focused on the old canard "staying the course", the only diversion from this was the number of troops needed to do this, and even then it was only a give or take of a few thousand. Clearly there has been a blanket ban on any look into the outcome of withdrawal besides the constant repetition of the "Bloodbath/Genocide" line so beloved of those who also told us that up until last year there simply was no civil war in Iraq.

With a constant 70-80% of Iraqis saying that the presence of the US forces IS the cause of the bloodshed, surely some serious, detailed analysis of the alternatives must have been produced by the Pentagon. If the Pentagon can expend its time making up hypothetical reports such as the one where the US is attacked by Canada (its true, its a laugh, but its true), surely there must be at least one or two minor briefing papers which examine the prospect of an American withdrawal, without the regurgitation of Cheneys doom laden voice entwined within. Are there really no independent voices left, has the GOP infiltration of the state department become so complete that it really is just another arm of the Republican PR machine?

The other overriding idea that was not in any way challenged was a simple one, that the US is in charge of Iraq, when clearly it has spun beyond any semblance of control by any one or even any combination of a dozen competing forces a long time ago. Malaki can barely say that he is in control of the green zone, let alone the whole of his capital, Al Sadr can claim to run swathes of the capitol and some areas of other cities, yet he, apparently lives in Iran due to the constant threat of assassination. Sistani, the Grand Mufti of Shiite Iraq, can claim to speak on behalf of all the Shiite, but then we have no way of knowing how true that is until he issues a proclamation that goes against any of the competing Shiite forces. The entire idea of the Iraq testimonies on capitol hill are based on a spheres of lies overlapping spheres of lies in order to create a prism of truth. How Vietnam 1967 is that. Whenever a success is proclaimed, eg Mosul or Basra, a week later it explodes in flames and that is meant to signify victory. It signifies a control over the spin and that's about all.

After 5 years of relentlessly optimistic appraisals the best that can be said by Patreaus is that any gains are "fragile and reversible", while Crocker said "The situation in certain areas is still unsatisfactory, and innumerable challenges remain. I do remain convinced that a major departure from our current engagement would bring failure.” This with a straight face, doing exactly the same as has created the mess will somehow uncreate the mess.

And the reason the remain so relentlessly upbeat, Anbar Province. This little slice of Sunni heaven, where the formerly hostile tribes now enjoy being given buckets of US taxpayer dollars for the privilege of not shooting at each US patrol that passes, given arsenals of weapons to police their own patch of turf. Naturally this will fall apart the second the first wad of cash is late and whatever you do, don't look at the conditions on the ground as these little fiefdoms are created, don't ask after women's rights or human rights or the notion of a freedom as being anything other than the freedom to worship in a very fundamentalist fashion. This is now the definition of victory, Iraq with a hundred Saddam's, Iraq with a hundred torture chambers in each province paid for by the US taxpayer.

"We're no longer staring into the abyss of defeat and we can now look ahead to the genuine prospect of success. Success - the establishment of a peaceful, stable, prosperous, democratic state that poses no threats to its neighbours and contributes to the defeat of terrorists - this success is within reach."

This is McCain's view, beside the 18% of US citizens wandering the streets in hospital gowns afflicted by BSE, would you agree with any part of it? Would you describe it as in any way a reflection of any form of reality. And this is meant to be McCain's strong suit, this is meant to be the only reason for voting for the man, his foreign affairs experience. The abyss has not only been stared into, its been lept into head first with a triple pike coming right after his head bit into the blood stained dirt.

Representative Howard L. Berman: “How effective could this effort have been when mortars and rockets can rain on the Green Zone?” he asked. “For more than two weeks, our embassy is bombarded. In all, the past two-plus weeks have seen the worst violence in the Green Zone since the war began.”

Success is not even a relative concept anymore, it is pure fantasy. Success in Iraq is just getting the US troops out, plain and simple, forget anything that may resemble a democracy, the Kurdish regions of Iraq are the best example of. Touted as peaceful and prosperous, the truth is one of a region where the veneer of democracy covers a benign dictatorship, this is the best that a future Iraq can hope for in the medium term, long term it is, as it always has been up to the Iraq people. When Obama questioned Crocker on what constituted a success,

A clearly nervous ambassador Crocker sidestepped the question of what constitutes success. He refused to agree with Obama that a messy democracy with some violent outbreaks was sufficient. It is a question McCain can expect to be asked over and over again if Obama becomes the nominee. It will be a hard question for McCain to answer.

But McCain has answered, not in his fantasy definition of success, but in his constant conflation of Iran with Iraq, success will have nothing to do with Iraq, it will lie in the overthrow of the regime in Tehran, thus fulfilling the dreams of those he surrounds himself with, the same group of neo-cons who created this quagmire in the first place.

McCain today:

"I don't think you could make a blanket statement about pre-emptive war, because obviously, it depends on the threat that the United States of America faces," McCain told his audience at Bridgewater Associates Inc., a global investment firm. "If someone is about to launch a weapon that would devastate America, or have the capability to do so, obviously, you would have to act immediately in defense of this nation's national security interests."

Hence all the pushing/hyping of the threat of Iran during Patreaus testimony by McCain and his loathsome proxy, Joe Lieberman. After 5 years of bloodshed, we return to the same place we were in the run up to the Iraqi fiasco, with a (potential) President just waiting for his agencies to produce the data that he needs to fix the facts around his already formulated conclusion.

As Doug Fieth said on the US 60 minutes last week

"I think the president made the right decision given what he knew. And given what we all knew," says Feith. "And to tell you the truth, even given what we've learned since."

I predict that he will be given a big desk at the McCain Whitehouse because brazen stupidity will be highly prized and much vaunted. To those 18% of zombified US citizens, I can only say eat more brains, the ones you have are clearly not working.

On the upside in the US, these are the top five porn dowloads of last week. At least they represent something like reality:

1. Not the Bradys XXX

2. It's a Mommy Thing 2

3. I'll Toss Your Salad if You Butter My Buns

4. Lesbian Bridal Stories

5. Fuck My Mom and Me 2

Relations between Britain and Iraq suffered “catastrophic failure” after Baghdad bypassed the British military and called in the American “cavalry” to help the recent offensive against Shia militia in Basra, The Times has learnt.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article3671530.ece

How about we hook Crocker up to one of these

The Pentagon is planning to give US troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan "hand-held lie detectors" aimed at rooting out potential insurgents and terrorists.

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Pentagon_issues_pocket_lie_detector_to_0409.html

watch...and wonder

2008-03-28T17:01:00.001+11:00

the definition of incompetence is repeatedly redefined

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/bushswar/view/main.html

freedome 4 all

2008-03-19T12:14:00.002+11:00

oh Alex, you do suck some dogs balls....Alex "I'm the greatest foreign minister in the greatest government ever, of all time, ever" downer, celebrates the 5th anniversary by changing history, yet again....

once again in the face of overwhelming evidence Alex whimpers:

It was, nevertheless, the right decision.

First, had Saddam's regime succeeded in keeping UN weapons inspectors out of Iraq and defying the will of the international community — including the US — he would have been greatly empowered.

Yes, but Alex, your decision to invade drove the weapons inspectors out, you drove the inspectors out, they all begged for more time to do their job, they went to all the places pointed out to them by Doug Fieths creepy henchman, and in 100% of the cases, found nothing. Add to that the admission that the US had infiltrated the UN Inspectors and were using the inspections to gather intelligence on Iraq.

If the weapons inspectors had been given the time to do their jobs, and they revealed the truth, that Saddam was talking through his arse about his capabilities, how does that "embolden" him. It may win me admiring glances at the pub when I'm pissed and I brag about the 26 inches of man meat in my pants, its a different story when I have to drop em in full view of the pub and the evidence is less than overwhelming.

We went to war because a tyrant had an inflated ego? Gee Mr Greatness, you are definitely in line for a bit of an invasion.

1991...Saddam had survived the mightiest military coalition in history and by surviving he had "won". This perception emboldened him.

Oh Alex, even Dik Cheney said at the time that invading Iraq would have been a catastrophe, you don't like this little game you now have to play of "Justify Your War" five years on, but your happy to re-write the one from 1991. One again, invading a country coz a dictator has a big ego, don't cut much mustard gas.

If, in 2003, he had survived yet again...

Survived what? Your invasion? So he would have had his ego stroked if his extremely depleted ramshackle army had beaten yours, or if he had of been forced, like the previous ten years to allow the weapons inspectors to do their job.

Based on what the UN inspectors had reported, and the analysis of several intelligence agencies, most of the world would have believed that he had survived with weapons of mass destruction. On the basis of what we do know now, he would enthusiastically be rebuilding his WMD capabilities today.

Oh Alex, the weapons inspectors found that he didn't have the capabilities and Hans Blix said so, Hans also apologised for not saying so more forcefully in the run up to the war, saying that he didn't realise that his more diplomatic language would be taken by people like Alex and used out of context, just like Alex is doing now.

So Alex, with that sparkling hindsight of yours, don't you remember that Saddam was boxed in on all sides, had US jets constantly bombing him whenever a President felt a dip in his polls, a sanctions regime that classified infants humidifiers as WMD components, weapons inspectors up the ying yang and the only people breaking the sanctions were our very own representatives of the Australian Government DFAT through the guise of AWB.

"the analysis of several intelligence agencies", you don't mean "stupidest man on the face of the earth" Doug Feiths little crew and the British dossier based on an undergrads term paper, you don't mean the same dossier that warned that Saddam could launch a WMD attack on Europe in as little as 45 minutes that really meant to say "could fire a conventional weapon somewhere in the vicinty" but the words WMD accidentally were typed in front of, you don't mean the people who got everything wrong and hyped what little they did find till the blue sky turned a bloody shade of red, you don't mean the Germans who held your main source of intelligence, the Iraqi defector "Curveball" whom they described as a "a pathological liar" and "mentally ill". Just what agencies are you talking about, its not ASIO or any of ours, you've already stated that we relied entirely on US and British intelligence.

Second, a still-more powerful Saddam would have been a major threat to his own people and the Middle East.

That's assuming that Saddam had somehow had his ego inflated by fulfilling an entirely hypothetical scenario which was never going to be played out in the first place, so not a good start to point two Alex. Did you spend all day during your tenure as FM worrying about who could use a hug, were you worried about other dictators egos and their fragility, did you have at the ready the card of a good psychologist or life counsellor for those that you thought could do with a bit of a boost? Any wonder AWB fell into the "I cant recall" when you had such pressing worries on your mind.

There was no more brutal dictator on Earth in 2003 than Saddam Hussein.

Would you really like to go through a list of Dictators at the time, Charles Taylor was eating the flesh of his opponents and slaughtering them by the thousands and we accepted him as a good buddy. In the Congo three million were being slaughtered, in Burma, in Chechnya and other former Soviet republics masses were being put to death and disappeared. By 2003, Saddam was brutal, no question, but THE most brutal, cmon, and with such a fragile ego.

To act in a way that made a hero out of a man who had murdered about half-a-million of his own people, declared war on two of his neighbours and supported terrorists from Abu Nidal (the Osama bin Laden of the '70s and '80s) to Palestinian suicide bombers would have been sheer folly.

Sorry, just who was it that you speak of that considered him a "hero"? Can you name a few, outside of a few hardline Palesinians who the world ignores anyway? I also love the fact that the same people who put together the stats on the 1/2 a million figure are the same people Alex said were completely wrong and maybe just a bit batshit crazy, when it came to the 300,000 to 600, 000 figure of Iraqi dead in post invasion Iraq.

His two wars, we, the US and Britain all supported Saddam in his invasion of Iran, provided material support and cheered from the sides at the insanity. His second war, against Kuwait, despite the recent re-writing of history by the then US Ambassador, could at the very least be seen as having been tolerated at the start by our allies the US, "we have no position on your dispute with Kuwait" was the US answer when Saddam asked if he could invade.

Alex, why mention Osama, Abu Nidal was not the Osama of the 1970's, any more than Yasser Arafat was. When Nidal was in Iraq, he was an old worn out ex-fighter, hooked to a dialysis machine, under the watchful eye of Saddams secret police under house quarantine. Yes, Saddam did support the Palestinian cause, occasionally providing $20,000 to the families of suicide bombers, but not always, despite boasting a lot about it. If supporting the Palestinians is so wrong, I would suggest that we should have invaded the entire Arab world to follow your logic.

At a time when moderate Muslims have needed all the help they could get from the West in the struggle against Islamic extremism, there is no doubt an empowered Saddam would have been a major obstacle to successful Arab-Western co-operation.

And invading a sovereign Arab country against the advice of nearly every Arab regime and over their strenuous objections and with nearly 90% of Arabic people against the idea, aided that cause how? If you were worried about helping Muslim moderates, wouldn't encouraging and insisting upon free elections in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or Egypt, or even just a modicum of freedom of the press, have done a thousand times better.

It is often claimed that Saddam had no links with al-Qaeda:

No Alex, its just a fact, not a claim. Al Queda wanted Saddam gone as much as GW Bush did, and said so on many occasions.

not because he himself was committed to the ideology of extremist Islamists, but on the time-worn principle that my enemy's enemy is my friend.

Just like the US is now doing with Sunnis insurgents in Iraq, a process you applaud wholeheartedly, despite the fact that it will come back to bite them very hard on the arse. Then again, its the reason why we supported Saddam in the 1980's against Iran.

Third, there is no doubt the Americans made some mistakes.

Funny, I don't seem to remember you pointing this out to the US at the time, you said the US were 100% right in the way they were going about it, maybe you should have said something when there was time to fix things. Oh well, you were clearly fretting about Saddams id and super-ego balance, now just how many personal issues you subscribe to the old tyrant.

The most common criticism is that they pursued the de-Baathification policy too zealously. Initially, the Americans wanted a modest de-Baathification process, knowing that many of the people who made Iraq work at all were Baath Party members because it was impossible to hold any position of authority without being in the party. The Americans only planned to remove from office the top two levels of the bureaucracy — that is, ministers and deputy ministers or their equivalents. Once the Iraqi Interim Government took over,......

The newest reason why the Iraq adventure failed, we did great, it was the Iraqis who really failed, we were brilliant, the Iraqis were shit.

Bremer and the US were in complete control, they issued the orders for the complete de-bathification of Iraq, not as Alex tells it, the Iraqis. Oh Alex, what a big fat whopper you just laid. If you cant say "I don't remember", don't lie, just say "it slipped my memory" or "I cant recall, sir". Next you will tell us that Bremer only meant to get rid of those parts of the Iraqi Army that wore red boots, not the whole army, it was the Iraqis who insisted that we allow 500,000 men with guns to flood the unemployment offices of Iraqs Centrelink. Those Iraqis must have been just complete fuckwads to have a genius like Bremer giving such nuanced, precise orders and then completely ballsing them up. As Alex says "Arguably, the Americans should have done more to restrain them, assuming they could."

The more serious criticism of the Americans is that they should have sent more troops to Iraq in the first place. This is the view held by, among others, then US secretary of state Colin Powell and Senator John McCain.

Alex, Alex, Alex, this is the 21st Century, I don't need to consult the only person in my village who can read to run down to the Archbishop who then runs to the King to find out the real facts, I gots google, here is what your John McCain said in the run up to war

"But the fact is, I think we could go in with much smaller numbers than we had to do in the past. But any military man worth his salt is going to have to prepare for any contingency, but I don't believe it's going to be nearly the size and scope that it was in 1991."
John McCain, September 15, 2002.

"It's clear that the end is very much in sight...It won't be long. It, it'll be a fairly short period of time."John McCain, April 9, 2003.

"I'm confident we're on the right course."John McCain, March 7, 2004.

"I think he strengthened our national defenses. I think he has a good team around him."John McCain, on President Bush, September 3, 2004.

"I said no. My answer is still no. No confidence."John McCain, on whether he had confidence in Bush Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, December 15, 2004.

Alex if you are going to give a man as a reference, a/ make sure you know what he is talking about and b/make sure that he knows what he is talking about, in this case, you got two for two wrong. Never mind, maybe it was the Iraqis who you got to help with the wordprocessor thingy who completely fucked up, again.

The fact is ol Mr Straight Talk express can express all opinions at all times and still be seen as right at least some of the time, remarkable.

Also Colin Powell when asked if he would do it all over again, knowing what he knows now, his answer was an unequivocal "No".

The consequence of withdrawing before securing a stable Iraq would be genocide. The country would almost certainly descend into a free for all that would make last year's violence look tame. Added to that would be the intrusion of neighbouring powers unable to stand aside as their brothers and sisters were slaughtered. That would threaten a full-scale regional conflict.

Alex, your not trying to tell us that Turkey may invade Iraq, heaven forbid. Your not saying that the Shiite led government in Iraq would lay on red carpet for the Iranian President, while all US/British/Australian dignitres have to sneak in under the cover of darkness unanouced and still require a massive body guard even in the green zone? My god, never. Why do nearly 75% of Iraqis want the US led forces out immediately and say that they are causing more problems than they are solving?

Some say because the bloodshed in Iraq is a function not just of al-Qaeda terrorism but also of Sunni-on-Shiite civil conflict we should leave the Iraqis to fight it out.

Some say that fox news is fair and balanced, some say that enemas with ground glass are dangerous, some (including me) say that you are both a present and retrospective liar of little talent and a distorted, convient memory. Even the most optomistic, stretched assesment of Al Queda in Iraq (as very distinct from Al Queda) from the Pentagon says that they contribute no more than 3% of the violence. That means that 97% of the fighting currently going on IS "Sunni-on-Shiite civil conflict".

but to abandon 27 million Iraqis altogether now would be a terrible act of folly.

Oh Alex, you speak of the Iraqis as though you actually care what happens to them, even though you blame them for the present troubles. You have abandoned the over 20% of Iraqis who have fled the country, leaving only some 22 million plus to fight for survival. You have through your actions, lies and incompetence abandoned them, but thats ok, Im sure no one will notice if you just tell enough people your newest version of the facts.

It wasn't right to turn our backs on civil war in Rwanda in 1994 when 800,000 people were slaughtered; it wouldn't have been right to turn our backs on civil conflict in the Balkans; the world has done too little to stop civil conflict in Darfur. How, then, is it right to turn our backs on the conflict in Iraq? Clearly it is not.

Lets see how many troops do we have in the above countries? How brave you are Little Alex now that you can re-write it all, I for one cannot wait to wipe my very ample arse on you up coming biography, the fact is my shit does stink, and that will be so much more truthful than anything contained in those pages.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/toppling-saddam-was-right-for-iraq-and-the-world/2008/03/18/1205602383436.html

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Will the first Oz victim of the credit meltdown in the US be Gunns new, and as yet unfinanced, pulp mill?

Members of the Australian Olympic team will be forced to sign an agreement that means they will have to ask permission to comment on human rights during the Beijing Games.

Australian Olympic officials say athletes will not be gagged from making political comments, but they may be sent home if they do not ask permission first.
One part of a 53-page agreement that all athletes going to Beijing will have to sign says: "Unless and until otherwise directed by the Chef de Mission, athletes may comment or communicate with the media only in relation to their events, prospects and performances at the games."

...................................................

Meet Mr 10%'s shadow parliamentary secretary for families and community services, Senator Bernardi

THE Opposition's parliamentary secretary for families has been linked to a scheme that sold financial advice on how divorcees could hide money from their former spouses.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23399707-2702,00.html

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John McCain = 4 more years of the Bush Whitehouse

In 1999/2000 rode around in his bus with the words "Straight Talk Express" prominently scrawled across its glistening surface. Those long ago days he refused to pander to those far right religious bigots so beloved of the Bush Team, utter scumbags like Jerry Falwell, held moderate views on gun control, lobbyists and abortion, and was not afraid to speak just a little of his mind on these topics. Unlike all the other republican candidates, he seemed to be genuinly unafraid of aleinating the base of the Republican party, speaking his mind and damn the fund raising.

We all know what happened to him, on the verge of winning the slot, his campaign was undone by rumours of him spawning black babies, the mysterious rumours of his unpatriotic behavior during the vietnam war (the tapes of his rants against the US produced after 2 years of torture at the hands of his Nth Vietnamese captors, resurfaced) and his war record was slyly questioned. All these things seemed to point to the Bush team, McCain even demanded Bush call off his attack dog Rove and repudiate the slurs (Bush just shrugged his shoulders and continued as though it had nothing to do with him).

Of all the Republican candidates running in 2000, McCain stood head and shoulders above them all, yet lost.

Cross to today, the bus is still with us, the slogan is still with us, but the candidate is the palest shadow of his former self, having learnt the valuable lesson that principles are worthless in the face of losing power. The Obama or Clinton camps are going to have a field day with their ability to juxtatpose the "straight talk" brand name against the reality of the Flip Flop Express, going to whoop with delight at all the wonderful remarks the man has made over the past few years which have turned out to be so ver, very, very wrong. While some conservative commentators have pointed out that McCain has consistently stood up to the Bush Whitehouse, and god knows everyone else is fleeing in terror at being branded as even having been in the same state as Bush at the same time, the reality for McCain is that on every issue, McCain is either in lockstep or caved into the Bushies on each and every issue. McCain called for the surge, the President rejected it, when Bush caved in and commited the extra troops, it was labeled the McCain surge, then when it appeared to be failing/making no difference, McCain renounced it, then when it appeared to be having some effect, re re-embrcaed it.

for just a few of McCains flip flops on the war, please read with annoyance the below:

http://www.perrspectives.com/blog/archives/000979.htm

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2008/03/mccains_iraq_dilemma.html?nav=rss_blog

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/18/notebook/main3948777.shtml

bound to happen

2008-03-18T12:16:00.006+11:00

I really don't believe in leaders, though I tend to see the point of parking meters. . .

.....MICHAEL MOORCOCK

.......................................

Beihai Park, Beijing Winter 1984, I can recall them quite clearly despite my consistent hangovers, two hunched old women wrapped in their thick Mao blue fake fur lined overcoats, I can remember mapping out in my head a space in front of the two of them the size of my normal stride and counted as they shuffled through my imaginary lines. One required twelve steps, the other just ten to walk the same distance as one of my strides, I sat on the chilly bench next to a local and he smiled (and probably spat, as was the continuous custom) as i marvelled at my first sight of the last living remnants of Imperial China, bound feet. As they slowly made their way past my seat, I expected to see their faces etched in permanent pain, yet saw none as one of the elderly women turned from her conversation, noticed me and let out a stream of abuse in Chinese and spat at my feet. This was to be just one of the six or seven times I was spat on during my stay, and all for the same reason, the woman with the bound feet mistook me for Russian in my giant winter coat and excessively furry Marmot hat.

My local began to gesticulate wildly, and shout out, the only word I could make out was, "Ow Dow Li Ahh" which I repeated in my near perfect imitation of the Chinese word for Australia, the old woman blushed, smiled, patted my face and I can only imagine apologised. Then she and her companion shuffled on slowly into the wintry depths of the pavilion. I honestly didn't expect to ever see, except in photos in a museum, bound feet, that ancient practice of wrapping female infants feet in layers of bandages so that they would not grow beyond 6 inches,

for the Imperial Chinese it was a sensual to them as a boob job is to us.

The Chinese Government of today has hobbled itself as surely as those bound feet with its desire to hold the Olympics. Bindings of the tyranny of a single voice to speak for all Chinese, swathed in the tightening bandages of the suppression of dissent in Tibet, the inevitable corruption that comes from all such centralised power as is vested in the Peoples Party, the failure of the rule of law to be applied equally to all, the failure to develop a free press or transparent government or judiciary, the complete failure to allow even mild dissension to rise without the heavy hand of the state to crush it.

These things deform a state and no matter what the progress made on the economic front, they twist a society from the inside and eventually make the old saying, a state divided against itself must fall, become a truism. But then that can take many years and meanwhile the state learns to walk on its hobbled feet, even after a while, comes to see the situation as natural, a billion voices from a hundred separate ethnic backgrounds, that can only speak with a single Han accent is the real voice of modern china, as modern china is told.

Ross Terrill describes modern China as "an Empire pretending to be a nation" and Tibet since 1951 has fallen under the spell of that pretence, as has the rest of the worlds governments which have refused to recognise any other government ruling Tibet save China. The current uprising in Tibet was inevitable the closer the Beijing Olympics came, the focus on China from the outside world and the hope that granting it the worlds premier sporting event would lead to a freer more open nation was bound to be tested by those living under the yoke of Han oppression. The Dalai Lama, after so many years of counselling a peaceful solution has conspicuously not condemned the frustrated citizens of his homeland nor come out against the violence, merely pointed out the reasons for it and condemned the cultural genocide taking place for what it is.

With Tibet now closed to the worlds prying eyes, the true Chinese response to Tibet's uprising will take a long while to filter out and of course be met with that single voice announcing as it has, "that not one single live bullet" was fired into the rioting crowds. Reports of 100's of dead will be met with official statistics saying that 10 or 12 "terrorists" were killed, and depending upon your political bent and what you can gain from the outcome, you will believe one or the other, the truth here is as deformed as any other object wrapped so tightly.

And of course, no tyrannical state these days can help itself in clothing its tyranny in the language of the War On Terror, western Chinese separatists are going to be allied, as we saw last week, with Al Queda and all demonstrations or critics will be contaminated and conflated with the Bushy white house rhetoric. The farcical WoT now cloaks a myriad of tyrants in the emperors new clothes.

For anyone travelling to Beijing for the Olympics, play a little game when your standing in Tianajim Square, get out your stop watch and every time you see a banner hoisted aloft, count the seconds before a mob of plain clothes "Beijinians" subsumes them in a human pyramid. And wait for the unofficial reports of the round ups in the count down to the torch being lit. As with the "terrorist" hijacking of an Australian tour bus last month, don't wait for the explanation for the actions to come from anywhere except the State, and then don't believe a word about "madman", al queda or any other word that may come from official sources.

For all my deep, deep love of China, I know a savage, self inflicted, deformity when I see one.

if you want my bumper sticker response:

Free Tibet, Not Hippies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_binding

.....................................

Speaking of the ever lovely franchise of the WoT, the War For Peace that is Iraq, its just passed its fifth birthday, and like the over sized, jagged kidney stone that it is, the passing has just brought howls of pain to my nethers.

After five long bloody years, we still don't have a clue why we started it in the first place.

Dick Cheny this week called it a “successful endeavor” and boasted of the “phenomenal” improvements, and as if that were not the height of delusion, still insists that despite a report out last week from the Pentagon declaring that there were NO, I must repeat, NO ties between Saddam and Al Queda, Ol, "Shoot em in the face and see if they apologise" Dik, has said that the report "conclusively proves" that there were. Not only that but he repeated his favourite bed time fairytale, that Mohamed Atta met with Saddam's operatives in Prague before the 9/11 attacks, even though it was debunked and has been completely debunked by every agency, every country, every pre-school kid in the entire World.

But then re-writing history to suit your own point of view is the natural habit of all supporters of the Iraq Fiasco, why just last week our ex- foreign minister, Downer repeated what has been told for the last few years by Howard, Cheny, the big furry Bush, Blair, Richard Perle and all the neo-cons, a very big fat lie aimed at revising the historical memory. ergo:

"Prior to the invasion the French and the Germans believed that Saddam had WMD's."

When you hear that little gem pop up in conversation, here's a couple of questions:

How many troops did the French and Germans send to invade with the Coalition of the Willing?

Why did the French describe Colin Powells assertions of facts at the UN as "thin" and "unsubstantiated"?

Why if the French and Germans felt as strongly about the threat from Saddam as you do, did they insist upon UN inspectors being given more time to get to the truth of the facts as presented?

Weren't the French and Germans 100% correct in insisting that UN inspectors be allowed to do the job the UN gave them, and if they were allowed to do their job, wouldn't the French and Germans be 100% right in their stance not to join the invasion?

Point to the documents that the French and German governments presented that unequivocally state that Saddam had WMD? Bet ya cant find one that isn't filled with qualifiers. Or calls for letting the UN inspectors do their jobs.

You can have your own opinion, but you cant re-write history by making up your own facts.

The other little canard that is constantly being trotted out by our Ex-pm and his favourite poodle Alexander, and been used by such sterling luminaries as Paul "Sorry, My fuck up" Bremer, Dick Cheny and the man who just don't look like he wants to be there, Pres Bush, is the answer to the very simple question.

Knowing all that you know now about the Iraq Invasion and subsequent occupation, would you still do it?

The answer from these fools is always the same. Yes, of course, Im insulted that you even ask such a ludicris question.

So my question is equally as simple, knowing what you know about Enron and its jagged, suicide inducing, pension plan wiping, collapse, would you today, recommend buying shares in the company?

Can I sell you some $170.00 a share?

..............................................

Where are all the free marketeers today, maybe in bed with a cold??

ah the good old days of the savings and loan collapses come back to haunt the market. My favourite images of the S&L scandal that exposed Reganonomics for what it is, where the sights of bulldozers ploughing under entire newly built resorts once the real value of these phony valuations where brought into the light of day. What one day was worth $100 million on the books of the West Texas S&L, today aint even worth the price of hauling away for firewood, sound like anything that may have happened over the last few weeks. Give you a hint, last year the stock peaked at $170.00 a share, last week it was $65.00, last night it was $50.00, right now....$2.00

NICK PARSONS, NAB CAPITAL:There's a range of lending that's been done against some fairly stretched asset valuations....trying to put a proper valuation on the assets that banks have already got.

every global and supernational organisation is going to be telling us that the fundamentals are sound and we don't need to worry. Well, I think last Friday's events showed us we should take those sorts of comments with a bit of a pinch of salt.

....$2 a share is derisory when you compare it with the $35 at which it closed on Friday, the $65 at which it opened on Friday morning. The reason it didn't go down to zero because frankly there would have been a feeding frenzy for the lawyers.

ALI MOORE: Indeed, you talk about how fragile it is and just tonight our time, morning your time Lehmann Brothers has had to come out and say that their liquidity position is OK?

NICK PARSONS: They're all OK as of now. As of this moment we don't know what those liquidity positions would look like in an hour's time, let alone 24 hours or a week.

(today the shares began to slide on the back of the "everything is wonderful over here" statement issued by the bank, market rule of thumb, if you need to tell everyone its all fine, then there must be some problems)

..............................................

John McCain the Straight Talk Express, some people are starting to notice those speed bumps, as he hits them, the make the sound "flip-flop-fwap"...lets all drink to embracing far right religious bigots. Yeee haw..thats some straight shootin tex...

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14763.html

and now for the best of his foreign policy analysts, more neo-cons and still more neo-cons, the same people who if they repeated your name back to you, you would feel the need to call your mother to confirm that its correct, coz they ain't bin right on one damn thing they ever said, period.

http://thinkprogress.org/wonkroom/2008/03/17/mccain-advisers/

http://thinkprogress.org/wonkroom/

Meanwhile Fox lets you know the rules for smearing in the coming election if Obama wins, before you can hitch up your skis to the next Swift boat....

http://foxattacks.com/blog/32906-fox-goes-wright-after-obama

http://foxattacks.com/facts/obama

Ive weighed both cheeks and it is true, my arse IS more "Fair and Balanced"

h

2008-03-13T10:40:00.004+11:00

To celebrate the anniversary of the birth of Israel, I'm inviting anyone to draw the borders of the country in question.

First to get the answer correct wins a two state solution.

Hint: If you engulf Egypt in the drawing, you are biblically correct, but will not win more than the love of the bush whitehouse and evangelical christians everywhere.

.........................................................................................................

On the back of these shameful scenes

The issue that prompted the huge turnout was a planning application for a new school catering for 1200 students - not just any school, but a school for Muslims. And these residents weren’t having a bar of it.

WOMAN: Sure we are racist if you call it racist not accepting a community that also happens to bear, they’ve got terrorists amongst them, Okay? We can’t say they haven’t, they have. If we let them in here they want to be here because they can go and hide in all their country little farmhouses.

MAN 2: Filthy grubs. Dirty filthy grubs.
MAN 3: No-one wants you here.
MAN 4: F**k off wogs, go back to your own country Mohamed.
MAN 2: We pay our tax mate and we don't want ...

The Australia I thought we left behind, is it just another of Howard's legacies or just something we glossed over for so long.

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2008/s2181743.htm

Comes this:

A FORMER employee at an Alice Springs hostel at the centre of a racism row said staff were told not to accommodate Aborigines. "We were told that we don't let Aboriginal people stay here," said Sarah, 22, who worked at Haven from July until October last year.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/worker-tells-of-hostel-racism/2008/03/12/1205126018809.html

BOYCOTT:

1/ Haven Backpackers Hostel, Alice Springs

2/ Adventure Tours Australia

http://www.adventuretours.com.au/company-profile-and-contacts

Contact this fuckwit to explain why his ever changing statements are at odds with your own perceptions.

ATA's Greg Zammit issued a statement saying an internal investigation found the group decided to leave of its own accord and was not pressured.

Greg Zammit

Marketing Director

301 Weekday Cross Building

Pilcher Gate, Nottingham NG1 1QF

United Kingdom

Phone: +44 7799 415980

Fax: +44 115 9241389

greg@adventuretours.com.au

.....................................................................

Like a rottweiler on a newborn, I embrace hypocrisy in all its wonderful myriad forms, to me holding diametrically opposing views, while living and breathing both is the natural state of mankind (women are very different, they believe that there is no such thing as hypocrisy, all that matters is you listen and agree with them on all points, then call you spineless or soulless for doing so).

Hence I can do good works by training Alzheimer's patients to work as tour guides for blind Japanese tourists in my fair city, while at the same time baiting bear traps with cuddly scented wombats and koalas to ensnare those same tourists in my cities quaint alleyways. I see it as a bit of yin and yang, with maybe a natural cultural bias for the yin side of the equation.

Or my stance on the next US election, where I support Hillary (not over Obama, but along side) while at the same time feeling queasier and queasier the longer the campaign goes on, Keith Oberman probably sums up many of my feelings the best (he doesn't completely coz he miss's out on her raging neo-con'ish hawkishness)

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/03/12/countdown-special-comment-sen-clinton-this-is-not-a-campaign-strategy-this-is-a-suicide-pact/

But then there's the Republicans who have elevated hypocrisy to a level where it is now obviously imprinted into their limpid sperm and ovum as they call for the resignation of a Democrat Governor of NY for spending vast sums of money on keeping young women clothed and sheltered in a free market way, while refusing to sack several of their own colleagues for doing the exact same thing, after all Larry Craig just sucked dick while sponsoring anti-gay legislation. CNN can even brought on a republican senator who had his own brand of free market love exposed in 1999 (he didn't resign) to call for a good old sacking, and its so natural that no one even bothers to mention the blatant disregard of gooses and ganders being fed the same diet.

Just sometimes those same fools who are given the right to make the wrong choice, the elector's, find it all just a bit too blatant, just find the shit that's being stuffed way down their throats hard to swallow. Like the voters in much respected Dennis Hassert's (i have no respect for the fuck, but that doesn't mean he isn't by some lump of gelatin flavoured DNA glob) who refused by a small margin to elect Hassert's anointed successor, a republican running an anti-immigrant platform, who poured millions into a series of anti-immigrant groups,

http://www.aicfoundation.com/

while at the same time earning the money he poured into such groups by employing illegal immigrants in his factories at $3.23 an hour.

Or take the ........................I can go on for hours, no really, I sure can...loose brained, uber-bigot, Republican Senator King (the new Santorum, just not quite as smart, maybe not even dan quayle smart) who called into question Obama's patriotism for not wearing an American flag lapel pin, repeatedly and given a shitload of airtime on half a dozen networks, all while not wearing a US flag lapel pin...huh? Holy fuck Blowjobman, lets see you do that to yourself again, yep Im giving up my life of crime....hours....honestly

But what about something like this, a president, a whitehouse stuffed full of highly paid, extremely partisan advisors, a presidency which in the presidents words "will be thanked for all they've done in 150 years times, ....like Lincoln." When absolutely everything they have said or done has been a total and complete clusterfuk, from their half arsed response to 9/11, to their fully arsed Iraq adventure, their stewardship of the US economy (they inherited a budget surplus when they arrived in 2000, they stand to leave a several trillion $ debt when the monkey stops fiddling with its organ and turns its talons on these vultures), the much vaunted US prestige, so beloved of our ex-PM Weasill Extraordinaire, has never been at so low an ebb.

What about this, a classified legal opinion given by one of the Bush whitehouse Christian College trained lawyers

The President, exercising his constitutional authority under article II, can determine whether an action is a lawful exercise of the President's authority under article II.

The president can wipe his arse on the US Constitution because the president determines what he can wipe his own arse on, constitutionally.

The origins of the word hypocrisy come from the Greek which means "play-acting", "acting out", "feigning, dissembling" or "an answer". Surely this then, this bubble the Bushies are living in, this fantastical notion that they will be vindicated by that notoriously unforgiving, constantly re-written re-invented whore, history, is the ultimate in true hypocrisy. And the idea that one flip flopping, religious zealot arse kissing, one time straight talker John McCain will embrace this legacy and is still given a possibility to win, is just laughable beyond words, but then there is the near impossible idea that the battle between Hillary and Obama, may just hand it to him on a very fractured plate.

The again, I can also see the sense in Hillary saying to Obama, well if you think this is bad, you just wait till the Republican slime start to ooze their vapid games on your political arse, then tell me I'm being negative.

“The effects of a free Iraq and a free Afghanistan will reach beyond the borders of those two countries,” Mr. Bush said. “It will show others what’s possible. And we undertake this work because we believe that every human being bears the image of our maker. That’s why we’re doing this. No one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave.”

Its truly to stupid to be called stupid, I can only conclude that the bubble he lives in is a nitrogen one and we are all divers just rushing to the surface in the hope of escaping the noxious odour emanating from his presence, only to emerge blind and crippled by its lasting presence.

I am setting up a shop of hate, wont you come peruse a world full of fine wares.

100 days of solitude

2008-02-28T10:17:00.008+11:00

She set fire to the house

and watched it burn down to the ground,

there are murders

and there are murders

and they happen everyday.....

in the last eight days 130 Palestinians killed

in the last eight days 12 Israeli's killed

only the Israeli deaths have been described by the US as an "act of terror and depravity''

only the Israeli deaths are important enough to reach the front pages of our newspapers.

"I condemn in the strongest possible terms the terrorist attack in Jerusalem that targeted innocent students at the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva. This barbaric and vicious attack on innocent civilians deserves the condemnation of every nation,'' said Bush.

Bush on the murder of a 1 month old Palestinian by Israeli forces this week, nothing.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/conditions-in-gaza-the-worst-since-1967-792080.html

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FAT TWAT IN SEARCH OF A NEW GOVERNMENT SUBSIDY

Now that whining arch conservative fat fcuking nitpicker, Piers Akerman no longer enjoys the pleasure of being subsidised by the Australian Taxpayer for writing Alexander Downers speeches, I can finally agree with his hypocritical loathsome arse. The rotund brainless Howard lick spittle made a profound point on the the demise of the Liberals by declaring that the Rudd Government in its first 100 days had "moved on all the things that don't matter to Australians, the apology, kyoto, the pacific island solution, withdrawal from Iraq...."

These things most probably didn't swing many votes towards the Labor party on their own and in many ways acting on them was the easiest thing that the new government could do, being in the main, symbolic acts. Yet the symbolism produced a profound schism between the Howard years and the new Rudd Government, staking out the new mans credentials instantly and pushing his ratings into the stratosphere

Lowlife scumbag Piers is right, none of these things on their own would have changed more than a handful of votes, yet for all of his talk of things not mattering to the Australian people, they meant the world to the far right ideologues of the Howard Government, like abortion or the ten commandments or anything to do with science or facts to the fucked up evangelicals of the US Republicans.

Therein lies the rub, if these things as Piers states don't matter to the electorate, and clearly they do judging by the popularity of the new boys and girls, then Piers is really saying that these things don't matter to the Liberals (and once again, clearly they do, if only in opposition to any changes to the stances), what is the point of the Liberals holding positions on a/things that don't matter or b/clutching so dearly in opposition to ideas that the electorate clearly embraces but the liberals outright reject. It all points to just how separated the libs are from reality, and just how confused they are going to be through the next few years of opposition.

Witness Opposition IR spokesweasil, Julie Bishop, declare workchoices dead, while praising Howards stand on Workchoices in a speech to a right wing thinktank in the US, while saying that she would block the new government's IR reforms and at the same time declaring that the Australian electorate had spoken on the Howard era IR reform and she would not oppose them. So far she has offered nothing but a shifting position on a daily basis to her own ever shifting position. I do believe that she is trying to find the elusive answer to Schroediger's Cat, her answer is that when she last lifted the lid, it wasn't looking well, and she wasn't even sure it was a cat.

Draw this into the wider debate and look at one of the main beneficiaries of AWA's, ABC Learning Centres and its current troubles. ABC Learning was at the heart and soul of Howards devolvement of government services to the private sector, earning well over a million dollars a day directly from federal government coffers, while screwing down wages and conditions for its staff and toddlers under care through AWA's, while also being one of the largest contributors to the Liberal Party, never has one hand washed the other so thoroughly, nor transparent ideological corruption been so self evident. Like Wacenhut in the US (and here) lobbying for lawmakers to push through laws which would throw people in their jails, its open and blatant corruption, yet completely legal.

This is where the Libs are going to have it very tough in the next couple of years, with a membership nation wide of less than 16,000, whose average age is 69 (the Nationals average age is over 70) and no ability to go the next election with anything resembling an IR policy, where is the cash going to come from to feed their expensive machine. Industry that for the last 11 years have funnelled vast amounts into the Liberal coffers will clearly have little on offer next time around.

The answer to this will lie in the NSW right, the truly fucked in the head religious zealots who will push a party that has given up the middle ground towards outright fruitcakery, the other source will be the Libs hope that their state brethren in WA will not make the same hash of things that Debnam did in the last NSW election and so bring on the cash cow that is WA today.

The Libs of today look a lot like the Conservatives of post the Maggie/Major era, a tired. aging rump of a party, devoid of ideas, low on cash and in retreat from all that they held dear only just a few minutes ago. Like the Conservatives of the that time they will most likely resort to the old Hang em High, kids should be jailed and not seen, law and order policies, so beloved of elderly voters. But that's a good two leaders down the track for the Libs, their other major problem.

The Howard legacy never tasted sooooooo goood.

................................................................................................................

Can you fly to the USA? Can you fly within the USA?

not if your names David Nelson.

as of today there are over 922, 000 names on the US Terrorists screening list, are you one of them? Find out here:

http://www.aclu.org/privacy/spying/watchlistcounter.html

The Language Virus

Skeptical U.S. law enforcement officials are seeking access to computers and documents that authorities in Colombia say show the leftist group FARC sought "50 kilograms of uranium" for a possible dirty bomb.

The great myth of the "Dirty Bomb" continues to plague the world, but its more the viral spread of the idea that haunts me, who could possibly have guessed that Columbia and its far right President are close allies of GW Bush. Its like whatever the Bushies touch (or give massive amounts of aid to, $600 million to Columbia and that does not include all the military aid) becomes infected with strangely twisted misinformation that mirrors whatever paranoid fantasies that the whitehouse is pushing, in roughly the same language.

The reality is that in order to qualify for that massive amount of aid that the American public are doling out to keep Bushes freinds in power, the Bushies like to hear their favourite catch phrases before each signing session. My thoughts at this second is that with Columbia being used as a Bush proxy against the leftist rise in Latin America, we should expect to see an Alqueda/Farc connection sometime soon.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4395397&page=1

The Iraq tragedy just keeps on giving.

By scrutinising the darkness and sharpness of shadows, she was able to identify holes made by looters and whether they were pre-existing or new. In this way she was able to assess the severity of looting before and after the Gulf War. According to Stone, 15.75 square kilometers of land have been intensively looted, including 213 archaeological sites.

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/health/satellite-images-reveal-extent-of-harm-to-iraqs-archaeological-sites_10023367.html

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg19726453.200-iraqs-legacy-of-looted-treasures-is-revealed.html

The Myth of the Surge

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/18722376/the_myth_of_the_surge

.....................................

A useful resource for anyone who has been either kidnapped by the CIA or by aliens posing as CIA operatives. God knows I have, now I know how to recognise that someone else has a problem thanks to this. But a word of warning from the administrator:

I do not have the knowledge about any medical procedures, or Dr's that does removal of implants. I also do not know of any Lawyers or any legal assistance that I can direct you. The best that I can do for you is direct you to support email groups, people there will be able to assist you better than I. That will also give you contact with other victims. As sad as it is to say many professional in the field of health care have a difficult time, believing this is going one with anyone. As for a therapist, they cannot really help with the electronic harassment and torture that people endure.

For the people that have endured mind control mixed with ritual abuse it is the same thing.

http://www.mindcontrolforums.com/index.htm

Remember, everything you read on the Internet is 100% true, like a universal spellchecker, it ejects anything that may be just a little factually challenged.

As an antidote to the above gross stupidity and utter incoherent madness:

http://richarddawkins.net/

democracy: the right to make the wrong choice

2007-12-07T12:50:00.000+11:00

my question to myself is this:

if evolution were a fact, how come there are no moths on the moon?

Surely after some 500 million years of trying one or two of them would have made it by now.

the election:

I hadn't planned to write on this space until the election was over, and it ain't over yet, counting still goes on in at least 7 seats, so it ain't over till the fat lady concedes that she is conspicuously outside her ideal weight range. but I am avoiding things

there were two key moments in the election for me

1/ second Tuesday after the election was called, all the news services ran a story about a drunken American woman in some drunken backwater state stumbling blindly amongst some railroad tracks while being waved at by a (possibly) drunken state trooper. She gropes her way in that pissed fashion that we all know, love and imitate with a fair degree of precision, across the rails and finds herself on the right side of the tracks. Meanwhile, a very large train whizzes past, its brakes screeeeeeching. The punchline, the train was 5 hours late and the inebriated woman was inebriated in a disoriented manor.

I know, wow, a train 6,000 miles away, separated by several continents was 5 hours late, puts the puny goings on in Iraq, Palestine and Eltham into sum perspective. This "news" was given a full 90 seconds of air time, the election was allotted 3 1/2 minutes. My first thought was to throw things at my television and scream out the window of my bunker "do you think I am a fucking idiot, at least twenty trains were cancelled in Melbourne in the last three days and not one of them made it onto that whore Disney's right wing noise machine ABC America!" or words to that effect. But then I realised that the tv was mine and destroying it, or even smearing the screen would not benefit anybody, least of all me and my neighbours are very skittish and don't take kindly to my animal howls very early in the morn when the fever grips and the manacles cut into my wrists.

I didn't give up watching all the political news I could find, I just realised that if this was the level of coverage and the content of what the voting public were going to make their choice on, I would opt out of reality and substitute it with something that made a bit more sense.

to the average joe, to the hard pressed working families, to the voting public, you are all fuckwits and I don't care who knows it, you just fucking well are, coz you lie there and take it like the cheep arsed whores that you are. Entertain me, don't inform, I may have to think and my brains will not work so good. U r cunts and u vote, I hate democracy, it is a vile sham.

2/ Communists. Week one, day four, the Libs and Nats were talking about the ever so gentile, barely left wing, hardly radical, middle of the road Labor Party as a front for Communists. Muthafucka!!!! What century are we living in? Did Bob Santamaria rise from his well pissed on grave and channel his loathsome spirit into those low life scum like C Pyne, T Abbot, whoever that toilet brush on wheels who rules over the Nats was and P Costello.

It didn't just sound like a terror campaign torn from the Joe McCarthy handbook from the 50's, it just sounded stunningly ridiculous, like riding through the English glen to warn that the Spanish were approaching these green and pleasant shores to rape our sheep and eat our women, or waving a lantern from a church tower to warn of the English about to do the above. Never had the future looked so much like an ancient long dead past, never had desperation smelt so deranged.

the funniest thing was they sporadically kept it up over the next six long pointless weeks, scaring old ladies and getting the folks at the RSL to regurgitate over their subsidized parmas.

they would have been a thousand times better off playing the terrorism card, equating Rudd or Gillard with Osama, morphing his face into theirs. But they didn't, they went for the scare campaign of yor. Ods bodkins, me thinkfs me sensfe a canoodle in me breechfes, y'all.

and still 39% of people put these utter dimwitted pondscum number 1 on there voting forms, insulting lead, carbon and wood (or ink if ye be of the modern bent) for all eternity. If we have a test for driving, why cant we have a test in civics before we let these peeple exercise their democratic right and not just leave it up to the newly arrived Australian's to do shit like that.

anyway, that's my whinge for the day, voters of Australia, you are on my hate list, take heed and all shall be well. Till then, I bid thee anon, I have seen the future and it is long past.

PS:

if anyone has been watching tv on a Sunday afternoon on our 2cents a day ABC, there's a program called "Heaven On Earth" or sum such title, purporting to document the rise and fall of socialism throughout history (1848-now). It is produced by the home of Bushies Neo-cons, the American Enterprise Institute, with such luminaries as Daniel Pipes and Richard Perle as "expert" commentators.

its light on facts

its light on reality

its heavy on the propaganda

the only thing these people are good for is directing traffic in Bagdhad with a target symbol taped to their backs.

http://www.aei.org/

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Enterprise_Institute

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/feb/02/frontpagenews.climatechange

the hangover b4 the big one

2007-11-23T17:08:00.000+11:00

vote labor

vote greens

vote for friggin NAMBLA for all I care

just make sure that this is the last day of the howard regime.

head sore

body aching

mind numb

fluids expelling

Im either incredibly hungover or I have just sat through a Tony Abbot speech without murderous violence welling up externally.

69 or 72: either way, you are close to your own demise

2007-11-14T10:16:00.000+11:00

While some may question my reemergence from a pointless election squabble to terrify your kith and kin, a weighty matter has arisen that demands instant unflinching action from our spineless, vote buying politicians.

I have been warning about this for years, trying to combat the potentially fatal neglect of a crucial national security deficiency.

I beseeched all parties to commit to a 200% increase in funding, even more if they are not currently committed to spending anything.

I harangued for a stern public health warning.

I begged for a national register to be set up.

I pleaded for an exclusion zone around all schools and compulsory subjects to be taught to all children to alert them to the very real and present danger.

I called for a pizza, and lo it was delivered.

after the launch of all parties official platforms this week, I knew that the nations safety would be placed last, or at the very least, near the tail end of priorities. Its as though the equine flu had never happened, well let me put it to you straight, it did, and horses coughed and died in the face of official neglect and incompetence.

Well now we have the potential number one killer baying at the doors of our fine (tho somewot fuked up in the wallet/head nexus) egalitarian nation. This disease will cut a swathe through your family, make you vomit in TERROR, then vomit again as you lop your nearest and dearests heads clean from their slavering bodies.

that's right, its official, Zombies are coming, and there is nothing but carnage ahead, forget interest rates and global warming, this is your future writ large on the ever reliable pages of history.

Recent work at Hierakonpolis has, however, revealed compelling evidence that zombies may have been problematic already in Predynastic Egypt (ca. 3500 B.C.)

The idea that zombies are supernatural beings needs to be discarded. They are not the Spawn of Hell, although, they certainly look the part. They are, or were, people who were infected by the Solanum virus. The virus creates a zombie by eating away the frontal lobe of the brain for replication, thus destroying it. The virus mutates the brain and allows the brain to remain alive but dormant and without the need for oxygen. Once the mutation is complete, approximately 23 hours from infection to fully functioning zombie, the ghoul will be on the unending search for living human flesh, thus spreading the infection

http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/hierakonpolis/zombies.html

ZOMBIES, PEOPLE, WE ARE ALL DOOOMED!!!! They are at your door as you look and I type wot you are viewing. For those of you who are either illiterate or not Y2k compliant, I beg the lord for my soul, coz I know that you will be the among the first to die, and I wont be horribly upset to cleave your wasted brains from your wasted bodies, if fact I may get a bit of a thrill from it. sorry. but it had to be said.

islamofacist week: celebrate by blowing up your choice of religious establishment

2007-10-24T12:46:00.000+10:00

While I don't have time for this shit this week, what with my permanent hardon due to the election, my 23/7 news obsession and more work than jesus at the annual las vegas leper convention, there are a couple of things I couldn't let go, one the ever entertaining serial fabricator and fox news harridan, david horowitz, the other, the Australians ever so fucked up editorial on David Hicks

ALLEGATIONS that US Vice-President Dick Cheney intervened to speed up the processing of David Hicks's trial following a meeting with John Howard during his visit to Australia in February have spurred a predictably hypocritical response from the Hicks cheer squad. Hicks's supporters repeatedly attacked the federal Government for not doing enough to bring Hicks home.

So doing a secret deal, behind the shield of a what was reported (purported) to be a "fair trial" after five years in Gitmo, which the PM denies, fixing a sentence with the vice president to both gag hicks and have him complete a sentence after the election, in direct contravention of the idea of a fair trial, rather than a mere political show trial is somehow construed as anything other than complete bullshit?

Getup executive director Brett Solomon is complaining about political interference and demanding a judicial inquiry.

Jesus if the allegation is in any way true, it deserves more than an inquiry, it demands charges.

While there is no doubt that Hicks's detention and trial went on longer than desirable, no one should forget that Hicks's confession and abundant independent evidence, including his letters, showed that he gave material support to al-Qa'ida, which he joined because he wanted to bring down Western civilisation and that he had trained to use violent means to achieve those ends.

Abundant evidence? Hicks "confession" would not have stood up in any court the Australian has ever been subjected to and the idea that he wanted to "bring down western civilization" is more than a long stretch of any bow, the Australian's owner, Old Rupe, is more in line with that overly emotive pile of utter shit.

In letters to his father, Hicks said the brutal Taliban regime, which executed women in public for crimes such as adultery and forbade girls over the age of eight from attending school, was "the best in the world".

Hicks may have been (well, was really) a complete dickhead for supporting the Taliban, our allies the Saudis, and numerous other of our allies in the war on terror, do the same to a more or lessor degree. Should we jail all expats who've worked in these countries be placed in prison for "bringing down the west".

However flawed Hicks's detention and trial were, there is no doubt that he fared better than Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped in Pakistan in February 2002 and beheaded by al-Qa'ida's third in command, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is held in Guantanamo Bay.

Apart from the fact that Kalid Shaik confessed to just about every crime to have been committed in the past three hundred years, after many years of torture at the hands of GW Bushes instruments, are we now holding the US to the same standard as that of a notorious terrorist? Have we sunk that low, sure you may have been tortured, murdered or falsely imprisoned, but at least we did it to you, not some other guy in a mud hut, we have a constitution, he just has a knife. To stoop to a level six floors below the gutter to justify your actions surely condemns your actions as totally debased. And didn't one or more "terrorists" already confess to the killing of Daniel Pearl? Or can you just pick and choose your confessions depending upon how you want to frame a factually challenged argument.

Hicks also fared better than his fellow al-Qa'ida trainee, John Walker Lindh, who as a US citizen was more speedily tried in 2002 and received a 20-year sentence for serving with the Taliban and carrying weapons.

Lindh pled guilty, was given no opportunity to go to trial, merely his sentencing, which his father wants revisited, chiefly because of the Hicks verdict. As happened in the Lodi farce, Lindh was basically given the option of buckley's and none, stay, be tortured, be a pawn in the Bushies War on Terror for an indefinite term or confess and get it all out of the way for the tranquility of 20 years in a prison where you at least have a modicum of rights on your home soil. The lindh matter needs a complete review, not this sloppy self serving shit from the Australian.

It is time for Hicks's cheer squad to face up to his ugly crimes and recognise that enough public money has been spent on delivering justice to a man who was dedicated to violently overthrowing our system of justice.

Hicks ugly crimes were by any admission on the lowest rung possible or the terror totem, and if the claims are true about our PM and Cheney fixing the outcome, then surely no amount of money should be spared in getting to the truth of how two politicians can so brazenly use the justice system for their own political end. The system of justice the Australian so brazenly claims to be upholding in its editorial is neutered and rendered obsolete to political whims, and that is surely at the heart of why we need eternal vigilance, not the tripe dished up by this supposed bastion of whatever fuking values it feels like holding up. An inquiry should be the least we expect.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22637955-25209,00.html

Extreme Right wing nutbags who give extreme right wing nutjobs a bad name:

No. 1 - david horowitz

During the week of October 22-26, 2007, the nation will be rocked by the biggest conservative campus protest ever – Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, a wake-up call for Americans on 200 university and college campuses.

The purpose of this protest is as simple as it is crucial: to confront the two Big Lies of the political left: that George Bush created the war on terror and that Global Warming is a greater danger to Americans than the terrorist threat.

http://www.terrorismawareness.org/islamo-fascism-awareness-week/49/a-students-guide-to-hosting-islamo-fascism-awareness-week/

pole dancing

2007-10-23T10:30:00.000+10:00

the communist manifesto: day five, its gonna be a looooong six weeks

2007-10-18T10:35:00.000+10:00

Peter Costello in his younger days

(with thanks to ms fits)

1977. Third from right is Michael Danby, now Labor MP for Melbourne Ports. Far left - no pun intended - is the gentleman currently being groomed as the next leader of the Australian Liberal party.

Communists?

"The greens, you know they are like watermelons, green on the outside and red on the inside" - who ever that watery stool was in charge of the Ol Boy Country Network, the Nationals, in 2004 election

"We are talking about her involvement as a union lawyer and as an organiser for the Socialist Forum - the Socialist Forum which was an extreme Left-Wing group," he said.

"a front for the communists"

I know that the australian peoples are sure easy spooked, (just mention their wallets or their mortgage and they run like your holding photos of them molesting korean orphans), but really, who the hell is scared of a communist uprising in Montmerency or even that hotbed of government Pork, Eden Monaro. Do communists even get into the top 1000 threats these days?

Peter Costello,
Working Hard to Stay Out of Touch

I thought Fat Hack PR fucks who flip flop like dying fish are irrelevant.

"We are not for the turning on IR" Joe Hockey, on Workchoices, a few weeks before doing a 180 and completely changing the IR laws, or at the very least changing the window dressing before they get re-elected.

"We have no plans to change the IR laws if we win officce again." PR Hack, Joe H. yesterday.

How long will that last Jolly fat fuck Joe Hockey? Key word here is "plans", this just means that they will change them, they just dont have anything written on the back of postage stamps yet.

Former James Hardie employee Bernie Banton says he takes exception to that, and says Mr Hockey is irrelevant.

"Where was Joe Hockey when we were fighting against James Hardie, he was nowhere to be seen?" he said.

"Without their [the union's] support and their absolute total commitment to getting that deal done, we would not have a deal for all those thousands of future victims."

CHRIS UHLMANN: Minister, how do you think the life of a worker would be now, if unions had not emerged from the dark satanic mills of Victorian England?

JOE HOCKEY: Well, I think unions have played an important role in Australia's economic development…

CHRIS UHLMANN: And that role is now over?

JOE HOCKEY: Well, essentially it is over.

So Hockey admits that the $121 million spent on anti-union workchoices answer was a waste of taxpayer money? Afterall, why would anyone listen to a campaign from an "irrelevant" body whose time is finished?

Howard endorses most dangerous drug in Australia when questioned on other drugs. Raises serious questions about Christophers Pynes obsession.

"We had to stop glamorising these "damned drugs" by calling them party drugs or recreational drugs", he thundered

"Why, they deserved the sort of stigma now attached to tobacco."

"I'm not criminalising tobacco and I'm not planning to." PM J. Howard

In yet another brewing scandal

PM Howard endorses taking money from corrupt businessmen, not caring that the money has been stolen from the public and many, many small and large businesses.

Mr Pratt donated $200,000 to the Liberal Party last year, but Mr Howard says there is no plan for it to be returned.

CITRUS grower Keith Milne reckons the price-fixing of cardboard boxes has been costly for him and other small players.

And extra costs are the last thing the grower from Nangiloc, south of Mildura, needs with a farm afflicted by drought and an uncertain future. MFC had a 22 per cent increase in prices over three years.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/box-cartel-actions-costly-for-small-fruit-growers/2007/10/17/1192300860016.html

Howard gets candidate's name wrong: is it alzhemiers?
Do you even remember the questions anymore PM?

PRIME Minister John Howard has made an embarrassing slip while campaigning in Queensland, getting wrong the first name of the Liberal candidate challenging Kevin Rudd in his Brisbane seat.
After being introduced to the audience, Mr Howard thanked his host and then said: "Can I also acknowledge the presence of two of my colleagues, one of them of course is a member of the medical profession Dr Andrew Laming, who is of course the federal member for Bowman, and Scott Thomas, the federal Liberal candidate for the seat of Griffith."
The federal Liberal candidate's name is Craig Thomas. Mr Thomas was also wearing a T-shirt bearing his name.

In the world of the bushies the truth will certainly set you free

Three days after Americans saw the Bush administration's counterterrorism chief say the Iraq war has likely not made the United States safer from terrorism, the official announced his resignation, citing health reasons.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/10/after-comments-.html

questions for the drug fueled pyne

2007-10-17T10:18:00.000+10:00

Could Mr Pynes fixation on drugs and abusing young children for political gain be behind the reason for the girl on the rights need for a wheelchair? Some people have speculated that the drugs found in Ben Cousins car were planted by Mr Pynes in retaliation for the "outing" of the Grand Mufti of Ponces dark, hideous secrets?

Will the Grand Mufti answer these pertinent questions or will he hide behind the cloak of parliamentary privilege and the snide retort of "no comment" forever. Holding ministers accountable is hardly the first port of call for any of Howards accident prone, forgetful bench, these days "i don't recall" spread over a dozen different weaselly ways is the new liberal slogan. Well mr Pyne, O grand ponce, did the drugs that many speculate you have an obsession with contribute to the memory failures of Mr Vaile, Mr Downer and PM Howard when they were forced by subpeaona to appear before Howards Little Bitch, Terrence Cole at the AWB Scandal Whitewash?

The Grand Mufti makes many unsubstantiated claims behind the legal shield of parliament, the woman in the picture above with a clearly "unusually" happy Mr Pyne, is stated by the ponce to be a maternal relation. This raises many more questions than it answers, such as will Mr Pyne undergo a DNA test to finally establish the truth in this sordid matter or will we need to go searching through FOI and neutral subcommittees to get the full, frank and shocking details? Is this in fact the woman who was seen in the car with Ben Cousins on the afternoon of his arrest? Did this woman give her permission to be used in such a blatant politically charge manner on the eve of a federal election, certainly his website and evasive answers offer nothing concrete other than his own words to bolster what could be a typically partisan smear against an innocent elderly woman. Don't forget that the Grand Mufti himself has stated that he is too damned busy conning his local electorate and way too young and adorable to be seen with the elderly, and yet we have this possibly photo shopped image of the him with this ancient piece of flesh.

As with all that is the Howard Government, the truth will be subsumed beneath a parsed legalese response requiring a QC's paycheck to discover. Tampa and the AWB scandal could well seem like mere lead based children's toys when this brouhaha is unleashed from its tangled web of possible and potential deceit.

.......................................................................

Day Four of the election campaign with little to show 4 the day besides a few minor foaming moments of Janet Albrechtsen's usual rabid anti-Labor shite, but then the Australian is not exactly noted for anything besides unflinching support for anything our wretched PM does. Hows this for grasping at straws, the headline "PM's stock rises on IR, economy", which when you read the article reveals that "In the latest Newspoll survey, Labor support on the issue of industrial relations was 47 per cent compared with the Coalition's 34 per cent. " Hows that for a bullshit headline, after spending $121 million on IR ads, the PM is still a very long way behind on one of his supposed strengths. Add that to this:

According to the latest Newspoll survey, conducted last weekend before the start of the election campaign, Labor has kept clear leads over the Coalition on the issues rated most important to voters - health and Medicare, water planning, education and the environment. Labor also led the Coalition on the handling of the environment, welfare and industrial relations. Labor has traditionally kept ahead of the Coalition on most of these issues in most surveys, and has slightly lifted its overwhelming lead on social issues by two points to 51 per cent to the Coalition's 28 per cent.

and you wonder about the rational behind the subs need to appeal to Rupert for his paycheck.

Costello stumped by mortgage claim

Quoting from a 2007 Econtech report, the website says Labor's industrial relations policy will push interest rates 1.4 per cent higher than they are today.
"This means working families will have to pay an extra $273 every month on their mortgage repayments," it says.
But asked by a journalist to explain such figuring, Mr Costello didn't have an answer.
"I would have to go and look at what's on the website, and if I do I'll give you the information," Mr Costello told a media conference in Melbourne."
Asked again how the government could say that mortgages were going up by such an exact figure, Mr Costello said: "You have asked me to have a look at it and see how it adds up. I'll have a look at it and see how it adds up."

http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Costello-stumped-by-mortgage-claim/2007/10/17/1192300844252.html

John Howards Friends abuse children with the PM's full endorsement (as long as they keep the money rolling in)

"To treat children in that way is abusive of them, and it's psychologically very damaging to the child. It's in effect telling the child that their parent is worthless … and that really is quite unacceptable."

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/exjudge-accuses-brethren-of-child-abuse/2007/10/16/1192300771160.html

US Prison Culture: the No 1 Prison nation on earth

One-third of the departing officers were fired for poor performance, falsification of applications or inappropriate conduct, including physical abuse of detainees.

“They get paid about the same as a Wal-Mart employee for a dangerous job that most people don’t want to do,” said Scott Henson, founder of Grits for Breakfast, a criminal justice blog. “So they have had to reach deeper and deeper into the bottom of the barrel.”

Juvenile detainees as young as 13 years old slept on filthy mats in dormitories with broken, overflowing toilets and feces smeared on the walls. Denied outside recreation for weeks at a time, they ate bug-infested food, did school work that consisted of little more than crossword puzzles and defecated in bags.

Don Sorgman and Terri Bruce say their 17-year-old son has been beaten by other inmates and pepper-sprayed by guards.

After months of glowing state reports, the squalid conditions were disclosed on Oct. 1 by state inspectors at the Coke County Juvenile Justice Center in Bronte. They are another sign of the deep disarray of the Texas Youth Commission, the nation’s second-largest, after Florida’s, and most troubled juvenile corrections agency.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/16/us/16juvenile.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1192503702-cRAhzUtgTF5tOkXF78tx7A

http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/

....................................

The War on Terror in all its hypocritical, vile, bloodstained truth.

"by any means at our disposal" dick cheney

http://www.whydemocracy.net/film/4

the twisted joke that is The War

Bush, Cheney and the US justice department have all used this case to bolster the image of thier dirty war, remember the front page claims about the Sears Tower just about to be blown to a million smithereens by a gang of homegrown terrorists on the eve of another vote in congress re: enhancing the terror laws. Remember how they turned out to be a bunch of quacky semi-christians with no access to anything except a paid FBI informant and that all except one of the defendants had never been outside their own city. Well:

Earlier Thursday, Assad testified that Batiste provided a detailed list of gear the group wanted, including machine guns, bulletproof vests, sport utility vehicles, motorcycles and $50,000 in cash. He said Batiste sought dynamite to destroy the 110-story Sears Tower.

Attorneys for Batiste and the others have said they never intended to mount a terrorist attack and that they went along with the FBI informants only to attempt to extort money from them.

Assad assured Batiste that he was a legitimate al-Qaida representative and the two informants were driven back to Miami unharmed.

http://www.courttv.com/news/2007/1012/pledge_ap.html

the future of the war under the republicans:

JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS, MAJOR GENERAL, U.S. ARMY (RET.): I'd stick a knife in somebody's thigh in a heartbeat.

At the GOP debate in May, Romney surprised a lot of people -- and drew applause from his audience -- when he said: "Some people have said, we ought to close Guantanamo. My view is, we ought to double Guantanamo."

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/10/romneys_new_foreign_policy_adviser_said_hed_torture_in_a_heartbeat.php

john howards new teeth: you've never had it so lumpy

2007-10-16T13:45:00.000+10:00

C'mon Australia, lets do a Lance on the boil that is John Howard

Ps Dick Pratt, the carlton tradition of corruption in its CEO's continues.

Christopher Pyne, grand mufti of ponce, pictured here abusing the trust of young children, maybe giving them dangerous drugs or at least instructions on how to get them.

This truly despised plaything of the extreme right, who has admitted being just to damned young and pretty for his portfolio of minister for the ageing, has so far refused to deny that this is his "pussy posse" or that if re-elected he would sell these kids into slavery or force them to work as droogs for the extreme christian cult of the exclusive brethren.

However The Grand Mufti does have an unhealthy interest in drugs and men in tight shorts, willingly and frequently appearing in any form of the media to discuss this habit of his. With this form should he be allowed within fifty feet of a school playground? I wouldn't despise him so much if it weren't for the fact that he is the ultimate parrot of dark ideologies, the like of which he neither understands nor is willing to admit to, publicly. Voted by me to the liberal party hack most to likely to "go out walking the dog" when sitting at home with his trophy wife and trophy children. If he had and original idea, it would have fled in loneliness many years ago. File under: complete twats and brazenly rapacious fuckwits.

............................................................................................

Woke this morning to the news that the Labor Party were shocked, stunned and in total disarray over our weaselly PM's tax bribe, then I read the same in all the papers, all this on the back of the Libs declaring that if Rudd didn't present an alternative tax plan in the next 12 minutes they might as well just pack up and declare the election forfeit.

But Opposition treasury spokesman Wayne Swan said Labor would not be bullied into releasing its tax policy prematurely. "We need to look at the package in total. We are not going to be rushed by the government or be bullied or pushed around," Mr Swan told ABC Radio.
"This is a very important election campaign. There is a lot at stake here so it is very important for us to take our time."

Sound like panic in the face of government whines? Not really, just more bullshit masquerading as facts from the libs. The fact is that the Libs have had the full weight of treasury behind them and the newly released fiscal data showing a greater than expected surplus (and don't get me started on just how right treasury has been on their "forecasts", sylvia brown has a better hit rate), and the libs have clearly been working with these numbers for some time, or why would they be able to produce a complete policy in less than ten minutes after treasury released the figures.

Then again, as pope muncher Tony Abbott admitted this morning after the ABC did an FOI request on advice he had received about the Mersey hijacking, the Libs and the PM have spent all year writing their policy in a few seconds on the run and on the back of postage stamps, giving special weight to the likelihood of photo ops over good governance.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/16/2060922.htm

http://www.stopsylviabrowne.com/articles/novusspiritus_thesefreaks.shtml

the extreme christian right
loved by the Liberals

How many commandments did this committed christian break last night?

"I was in Canberra and I greeted Mr Howard and inquired from him whether Mr Hales could meet him for a short discussion," Mr John's statement reads.

The ease of access contrasts with that of the former president of the Uniting Church, Dean Drayton. Dr Drayton said he had tried on about four occasions to arrange meetings with the PM both as president of his church, and representative of the National Council of Churches, which represents 4 million people. He sought meetings on subjects such as asylum seekers and WorkChoices, but "there was no real response from the Prime Minister's department".

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/brethren-lied-on-cash-for-ads/2007/10/15/1192300686417.html

ABC's Four Corners has claimed that a front company for members of the group has funded advertisements supporting the Liberal Party and smearing its opponents.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/16/2060390.htm

Mr Hales said the group had not acted illegally.He said allegations that there was a coordinated campaign by the Brethren to move large sums of cash around the world in breach of Australian laws was “completely false”.

“Some Brethren carry gifts of cash to distribute to persons engaged in furthering the work of the Lord and none of this money is gifted for or related to political campaigns.

Then again despite an enormous amount of evidence to the contrary, the Brethren also deny having ever spent a dime or lifted a finger to influence the outcome of any elections. Pure PR bullshit, deny, deny, deny, then when struck in the face with the proof, deny it outright until a court decides, then dispute the outcome with the charge that you are being persecuted. All the while you will have scumbags like Liberal Hack Eric Abetz throwing around charges that fascists and Nazi's are the only ones interested in this "attack on religious freedom."

This is not about religious freedoms, this is purely a matter of transparency in our political system, no one has stated in any way that this group has anything but the right to hold whatever fucked up, screwed in sideways, mix and match old testament views it wants. However when the group breaks electoral laws it is a matter for all to be concerned about, my right to a free and fair election trumps your ten commandments in a democracy.

"Mr Howard has a responsibility to level with the Australian public," Mr Rudd said.

When a cult infiltrates the political system and plays foul for one side while receiving millions in tax payer subsidies and has such access to the leader of the nation, we are entitled, at the very least to question and demand answers from our squirming toad of a PM. How much are the Libs getting from a cult which flat out denies giving anything at all? What role did their access to the top tier of the Libs play in their ability to get around discrimination laws? What has the government done to audit a registered charity that has been involved in flouting the laws regarding blatant electioneering for the Libs? None of these things in any way involves freedom of religion, all are simply the result of the interplay of the necessity for a democracy to be fair and transparent, and that none shall be above the law simply because they are major contributors to the government of the day.

The call is on the PM to explain, fully and frankly, but how often do weasels not act weaselly, its just not in their nature is it?

..............................................

Lessons in history

When the British Empire withdrew from Iraq in the 1930's after a disastrous 15 year occupation, they simply declared that their mission was accomplished and promptly left leaving behind an unholy mess that was no different to any moment of the previous 15 years. As a side note, the dick Cheney statement about being greeted on the streets of Bagdhad with "chocolates and flowers" came from this foreign policy fiasco when the Brits were indeed greeted with chocolate's and flowers in their initial march into the capital. They soon found the same grateful citizens were showering them with rocks and bullets, sound familiar.

Well, guess what, one of the Bushies pet generals is calling for the same approach:

Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, head of the Joint Special Operations Command’s operations in Iraq, is the chief promoter of a victory declaration and believes that AQI has been all but eliminated, the military intelligence official said.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/15/mcchrystal/

Sure smells like victory to me, no wait that's my stinky feet.

http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news\2007-10-15\kurd2.htm

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/15/1351251

Glowing Bullshit: you decide at long last

2007-10-15T11:08:00.000+10:00

Scientists confirms John Howard walked this way

Who do you trust?

A former member of the Exclusive Brethren has revealed the secretive religious sect has been transferring large sums of money across the world, possibly to fund political campaigns in Australia and the US.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/15/2059279.htm

Two senior elders of the Exclusive Brethren sect have gained permanent access to Federal Parliament, as lobbyists, under the sponsorship of two Howard Government MPs

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/two-mps-sponsor-brethren-lobbyists/2007/10/14/1192300599891.html

must watch for the night, 4 Corners on the Exclusive Brethren and its links to Greens smears and the liberal party.

.............................

LBJ on opponent in a senatorial race: Spread the rumour that he fucks pigs.

Aid to LBJ: but there's no truth to it.

LBJ: I know I just want to see the headlines in the papers when the bastard denys it.

Is Rupert M going in to bat for the Libs, the Australian has been running hard to link K. Rudd to this, the first smear campaign of the election.

The disclosure by former John Oxley Youth Centre teacher Karen Mersiades undermines claims the alleged victim was denied justice in a conspiracy involving Kevin Rudd to cover up the crime.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22585883-601,00.html

.......................................................

Day one minute one

and the cash starts flowing-

can you be bribed? again....

Costello plans on giving you $34 billion dollars in tax cuts

you apparently want better education, better hospitals, lower interest rates and maybe something to do with climate change that doesn't involve turning off your giant plasma, but you don't want to pay for it, in fact you want the government to pay you for the privilege.

is there a disconnect between what people want and what people think they deserve and what it is that they can get. As the saying goes, if you cant have your cake and eat it too, why the hell did you order the cake?

But back to my original point, $34 billion on the first day? I do believe that treasury warned that excessive election spending will lead to higher interest rates, so does this make the November rates rise a certainty. And after this day one splurge, will the PM now sit back and say, "look sorry, we have nothing left to say, just sit tight till election day in six weeks coz we just spent half the surplus on day one and basically cant afford to spend one more cent."

let the piggy bank break and roll on the floor in agony, coz the Pm is sure gonna be throwing cash at you, yea fucking mightily.

...................................................................................

For the labor party the big question

can it win 16 seats?

forget the opinion polls

Queensland poll shows Labor support is not uniform across the nation.
In it, Galaxy polled 800 residents in the marginal, Liberal-held seats of Bonner, Moreton, Herbert (margin 6.2) and Longman (6.7).

a uniform swing of the magnitude of the last twelve months data is really questionable and Howard is playing the marginals, throwing cash in vast bucket loads at seats like eden monaro and that could well spell the downfall of Rudd even if he wins the support of an overwhelming number of the electorate.

remember Nobel prize winner Al Gore, he won nearly 52% of the US vote and still lost in 2000.

..........................................................

Peace in our times?

So what will Condi Rice and her little lap dog Tony Blair do about this, each and every time a modicum of hope emerges from the occupied territorys, the government of Israel looks towards these touchstones of violence and scuttles the attempt.

Israel will resume archaeological excavations near a Jerusalem holy site that has often been a flashpoint for violence, Israeli officials said Sunday. The decision drew Palestinian charges that Israel is trying to scuttle next month's U.S.-sponsored peace conference.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gltAsV6Z1vF8YKN-psJTduQT9ZrQD8S94GL80

after 11 years...welcome to 1967

2007-10-12T10:41:00.000+10:00

I cannot say sorry

for our attempts at cultural genocide

for 200 years of squatting on your land

for breaking treaties with you and your ancestors

for deliberately poisoning your children with arsenic laced flour

for the hurt and devastating harm caused by introducing

alcohol into your communities

for failing to acknowledge your existence

for failing to acknowledge

the depth, strength, diversity

of your culture

for stealing your children

for the missionaries "saving" your souls

for introducing a thousand diseases into your lives

for building carpets of concrete and asphalt

across your beautiful land

for failing to understand

the affinity we need have with this fragile country

for trying to exterminate your languages

for the languages we did exterminate

for decimating your population

by any means we deemed appropriate

for the massacres

for the murderers we let loose amongst you

for having twenty more years of life in me

because my skin is white

for all that has been lost on the rivers of time

for all that will never be recovered

from the dust

with the last breath

of your dying men

for all the pain I will never know

you have lived through

for my governments attempts

to consign your lives

to the pits of history

for..........................................

(health spending 2007:

urban population: $400 per year average

rural : $360 per year average

Indigenous: $200 per year average)

fill in your race card before the election

2007-10-11T10:19:00.000+10:00

Vote in our poll now or be deported.

So how much race baiting would you like to see from our government?

a. a lot more
b. you can never get enough can you
c. it would be unaustralian not to.

What colour skin and or nationality would you like to see denigrated/ and by how much to change your vote?

a. Asiatic, its been a while since Ive heard anyone say what I'm thinking right now. /a bit.
b. American Indians, they are so overrepresented in the Australian crime statistics, I'm surprised you haven't asked before now. /not at all, I have friends who've seen John Wayne movies
c. cyborg coloured, they will run amok and destroy our future, its in Genesis. /Totally, something must be done
d. pedophile catholic priest coloured or shonky tradesman coloured, they are colours in the new Ikea catalogue. /Im outraged and I voted on A Current Affairs polls.

Or would you rather the Andrews approach and broaden it to "by the continent"?

a/ yes
b/ lets broaden it to hemispheres
c/ Im affeared of aliens, make it universal
d/ we are all bothers and sisters under our skins, lets make it everybody
e/ is it racist to say I hate all non white people, yes, well that's the country I want banned.

Do you agree with Immigration Minister Andrews "Violence is not a part of the peacefulness and the tolerance which has been very much a value of the Australian way of life."

a/ Iraq, white Australia, reconciliation, multiculturalism as a dirty word, "we do not want those type of people in Australia", Haneef.
b/ I didn't join the National Front and One Nation for the networking possibilities.
c/ I don't care who I hit over the head with this bottle, its my right as an authentic Australian.

Should violence be a part of the peacefulness?

a/ yes
b/ no
c/ i didn't read the question.

"I'm recognising the problem. Many people have recognised the problem," Mr Andrews said.

a/ Im a recognised problem.

b/ besides you, name them.

c/ I saw it in a shop window and would have bought it, but they only had it in black.

"I'm not proposing to apologise for saying what people are concerned about" Andrews.

a/ he says what I'm thinking before Ive even thought it
b/ he says what he's thinking even before he's thought about it.
c/ I have a noose and a white hood, wheres my rights. I'm voting Liberal now, as we speak.

Should verifialble "facts" be apart of any statement made by a Goverment Minister?

a/ Whose side are you on muthafucker, its time to chose, I bow down before my jewish overlords, they rule the world.
b/ Ive done perfectly well without these so called "facts" that you speaks off, thank you very much.
c/ facts shmacks, where have facts ever gotten us.
d/ Im a christian, I believe in talking snakes, asses, shrubs and that the world is flat, anything else is a work of communists or the devil or asians looking to swamp us with thier voodoo jive. Oppose me and I shall smite thee.
e/ Is that legal?

..................................

Spot the headline from these simple facts

Last night, according to the Victoria Police, in and around Melbourne and its glorious leafy suburbs three attacks occurred on police officers by "gangs of youths".

Two of the "gangs of youths" were white.

One of the "gangs of youths" were of African origin.

now guess which assault made the headlines in today's papers.....

go on its pretty simple:

need a clue...

two of the attacks are not reported at all, anywhere in the mainstream media.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22567071-661,00.html

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/youths-bash-detective/2007/10/11/1191696026250.html

http://au.news.yahoo.com/071010/2/14n9u.html

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=304625

et al....

of course you don't.

The degree of underlying racism in Australia can now be directly measured through the polls, during the next polling session, lets see if and by how much they move towards those playing the race card. If there is a bump in the Howard direction, of any significance, you know that is the percentage of the population that will vote for the colour of your skin and not for the person. I'm sure awaiting that shame.

.................................................

Edward de Bono eat your heart out award for the best piece of lateral thinking:

Fox News' The Beltway Boys, co-host and Weekly Standard executive editor Fred Barnes

You know, I've thought for a long time that Obama's not in quite as strong a position on the war in Iraq as he really thinks he is. Remember, when he famously came out against the war, it was back in a time when the entire world believed that Saddam Hussein in Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, that he would probably be willing to use them himself at some time or pass them along to terrorists who would use them. And yet, Barack Obama was against going to the war at that point. I don't think that shows that he is very strong on national security, which he needs to be. But that argument's not going to be used against him in the Democratic primaries. It would, however, by Republicans in a general election.
.........................................................

despite my natural hatred of the welsh, one of them, a police officer (or a whole bunch of police as it is a group report) is making the eminently sensible suggestion on drugs policy.

"We are absolutely delighted at Mr Brunstrom’s paper. The Chief Constable has displayed great leadership and imagination in very publicly calling for a drug policy that replaces the evident failings of prohibition with a legal system of regulation and control for potentially dangerous drugs”.

http://www.north-wales.police.uk/portal/files/folders/acpoblogs/entry3817.aspx

http://transform-drugs.blogspot.com/

white dopes on punk

2007-10-10T09:54:00.000+10:00

Spent part the morning searching for a book that I couldn't find, so onto the net I go.

What we need a branch of in oz, william upski wimsats, league of pissed off voters.

join up now bitches. It ain't all good, it ain't all perfect, in fact, its just like you.

http://theleague.com/

if not try and track down one the most important books written in the last 20 years, Bomb The Suburbs. It ain't easy to find, but its worthwhile beyond belief. I picked up my copy in that bookstore in Brunswick st, you know the one with the window, the glass window.

http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-887128-44-5

.....................................................

I am not a racist, but......pt one...just feel the subtext

Three seniors discuss the issue of African immigration, and how the Government is dealing with it.

MALE SPEAKER TWO: The Tampa crisis at the time just highlighted what a lot of people were thinking.

MALE SPEAKER ONE: And it was a vote winner for the Howard Government. A definite vote winner. And politically, he was probably wise to use it.

http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/content/2007/s2052836.htm

I (we) are not racist but..........pt two

As argument swirled around whether African, and specifically Sudanese migrants were fitting in, Seven said it had documentary evidence of Sudanese crime gangs on the rampage.

"Actually the guys fighting here are not Sudanese. That one is not Sudanese, that guy is not Sudanese.. I see only guy who’s Sudanese in a red t-shirt and he’s not doing anything.
— Akoch Manheim – Director of the Sudanese Lost Boys Association of Victoria"

http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s2054150.htm

outcomes:

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/sudanese-teenager-bashed/2007/10/10/1191695920122.html

"We came form a war-torn place where all of us were subjected to horrible tragedies and here we have been reminded again with the death of this young man that it is still unsafe here," Mr Kuot said. "We call on the minister to apologise - Australia should be safe."

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/mourners-want-ministers-apology/2007/10/10/1191695968357.html

...........................................................................................

does this:

A proposed House resolution that would label as "genocide" the deaths of Armenians more than 90 years ago during the Ottoman Empire has won the support of a majority of House members, unleashing a lobbying blitz by the Bush administration and other opponents who say it would greatly harm relations with Turkey, a key ally in the Iraq war.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/09/AR2007100902347.html?hpid=topnews

have anything to do with this:

"The government has given orders and instructions to the competent authorities to take all legal, economic and political measures, including a cross-border operation if necessary, to end the presence of the terrorist organisation in a neighbouring country," it said in a statement.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071009/pl_nm/turkey_iraq_usa_dc;_ylt=AoyH1.RyJ5AmOgr4c2COttqs0NUE

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Turkey_issues_fresh_warning_of_mili_10092007.html

.................................................................................................

welcome to agent orange territory:

officials said the skeptics — who include American military and intelligence officials and European diplomats in Afghanistan — fear that any spraying of American-made chemicals over Afghan farms would be a boon to Taliban propagandists. Some of those officials say that the political cost could be especially high if the herbicide destroys food crops that farmers often plant alongside their poppies

Powerful and politically connected landowners were able to protect their crops while smaller, weaker farmers were made the targets. The eradication program was so spotty that it did little to discourage farmers from cultivating the crop, American and European officials said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/08/world/asia/08spray.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

.........................................

the drumbeat to war: meet the cheerleaders:

http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2006/09/iran.html

...................................

in the face of those conservatives who spend their time denouncing gays, then go out "walking the dog", the most life affirming statement of the day:

AFTER years of psychotherapy, counselling and anguished prayer, Pentecostal preacher Anthony Venn-Brown finally stood up in front of his hundreds-strong congregation and announced the truth.
He is gay.
That public declaration cost Mr Venn-Brown his wife and two daughters, his friends and his place as one of Australia's leading evangelical ministers. That was 22 years ago.

"I love being a gay man and I love who I am, and the award was a genuine, genuine honour," Mr Venn-Brown said yesterday.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/truly-madly-gaily-a-list-of-influence/2007/10/09/1191695909969.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/08/AR2007100801323.html
...........................................

in god we trust?

$1 million bill depicting President Cleveland
PITTSBURGH (AP) — Change for a million?
That's what a man was seeking Saturday when he handed a $1 million bill to a cashier at a Pittsburgh supermarket. But when the Giant Eagle employee refused and a manager confiscated the bogus bill, the man flew into a rage, police said.

The man slammed an electronic funds-transfer machine into the counter and reached for a scanner gun, police said.

Police arrested the man, who was not carrying identification and has refused to give his name to authorities. He is being held in the Allegheny County Jail.

Since 1969, the $100 bill is the largest note in circulation.

Police believe the $1 million note seized at the supermarket may have originated at a Dallas-based ministry. Last year, the ministry distributed thousands of religious pamphlets with a picture of President Grover Cleveland on a $1 million bill.

........................................................................

I did but see her pass by

to know that I did love her...

http://snowman.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=262089

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haley_Paige#Death

sounds of the barrel's bottom being scrapped

2007-10-05T13:06:00.000+10:00

Photo taken from a gay website, Bucks knew no boundaries and was loved by all, regardless of age, sexual orientation or creed. He just was love, writ in manly flesh.

Nathan Buckley, Mighty Buckulees to those who pray at the altar of Collingwood, the one true god (may it be praised) has retired. The king is dead, long live...no, my mistake, he is just over there. As the joint honor winner of most loved footballer and the most hated player in the league for most of his career, he has done it all with the saddest exception, playing in next years collingwood premiership.

Tears will flow and beer will ease the flood. If ever a man deserved to have a whole nation get down on its knees and kiss his muscular arse in supplication and awe, it is Nathan Buckley the man who set a standard of excellence so high, most could just reach it by poking it with a stick from the top of a rickety ladder.

One day when he is given the role of UN secretary general, peace, skill and hardness will rule the earth, but knowing just how humble the greatest individual on earth is, he will undoubtedly say "I would give it all back for that one thing I lack, a collingwood premiership"

Truer words have never been spoken, and I mean that.

Bucks:
279 outstanding games (plus 1 slightly less outstanding one that nobody can remember when he mistakenly played for Brisbane)
norm smith medalist
600 copeland medals
the brownlow (forever known colloquially as "The Bucks" since that night)
collingwood team of the century
captain of the greatest football club in the known and unknown universe
loved by all (if indeed hate is the reverse side of loves coin)
first ever rising star winner, thus cementing the award in history
only man in AFL history suspended for improving the looks of the ugliest man in football (Ling 2002, 1 week)
Noble Prize (world peace and tight shorts division)

..................................................................................................

reasons to disbelieve the drug war lies:

http://transform-drugs.blogspot.com/2007/03/how-independent-on-sunday-got-it.html

.................................................................................................................
sage advice from your climate clever government:

NEVER LET THE FACTS STAND BETWEEN YOU AND GETTING YOUR FACE THE NEWS.
NEVER.

"We don't want people like this in Australia" John Howard

"we will decide who comes here"..as above

After a very pleasant leafy green holiday, I return to the ever so familiar strains of a government doing all it can to throw the race card into the long overdue election. Once more the minister for the selective release of unsubstantiated reports, Kevin Andrews, released a bevvy of selective words and unsubstantiated "innuendo's" masquerading as facts to back up his claim that black Africans were to blame for his release of the above. It should of course be pointed out that the operative word here is "black", as the same government encouraged and welcomed with open arms white farmers from Zimbabwe, and would do the same again tomorrow if the polls showed it may be able to win just one more marginal seat.

In a manner befitting the Honorable Minister, Mr Andrews, despite having an opinion that was fact free and based solely on his own departments thinly sourced prejudices given to them by the Minister, Andrews refused to release the basis for having the above, becoz:

a/ it was written in newly developed "invisible ink" and releasing it would compromise national security

b/ he was waiting to see how it all played out in the polls

c/ he is embarrassed to admit that he is dyslexic

d/ "Australia has the right to ensure those who come here are integrating into a socially cohesive community" even if it means falsifying reports, overstating half truths and just making shit up to please those who find it "difficult" seeing dark skinned people on their planet.

e/ the facts to support the Ministers stance are completely absent from any document that the Minister has seen, therefor vindicating the Minister by reverse osmosis.

While refusing to release the full advice or provide any statistics, Mr Andrews said a summary of the material included:
■Concerns about race-based gangs.
■Reports of altercations between Africans at nightclubs.
■Conflict and assaults between some African families.
■Reports of a developing trend of young African males drinking alcohol in parks at night.
■African community organisations arguing about who received favoured treatment.

Prime Minister John Howard yesterday said it was "contemptible" to suggest the Government was playing the race card, he did of course mean that the "race card" had in fact been played.

Of course our Police Chief had to weigh in on the rumble, adding what appeared to be verifiable "facts" to the argument

Ms Nixon said Sudanese people did not have higher crime rates than the general population.
"When we look at the data, what we're actually seeing is that they're not, in a sense, represented more than the proportion of them in the population," Ms Nixon said on Wednesday.

Andrews swiftly and irrefutably rebutted these outlandish pieces of political chicanery:

"When you look at the data that I've looked at, it does seem to me that there is a higher proportion," he told Southern Cross Broadcasting.

But he was unable to release any figures showing higher rates of crime among Sudanese people.

Mr Andrews also offered no data to back his claim yesterday that African refugees were forming gangs, fighting each other in nightclubs, attacking other families and congregating in parks to drink alcohol.

"Well, those figures are figures which are produced by the police," he said.

These "police" are obviously the same secret police who cannot be named for security reasons as Police data showed Sudanese people were under-represented in crime statistics, the other clear fact is that these "police" were the same ones who had us all in stitches with their very funny pantomime review "The Mysterious Haneef Case" which the good minister praised when attending the opening nites drinkathon.

Prehaps the best lines came from the newly positioned Qld Premier, Anna Bligh:

"It has been a long time since I have heard such a pure form of racism out of the mouth of any Australian politician," Ms Bligh told reporters. "When it comes from the immigration minister it is particularly disturbing. To hear this sort of attack on these people is, frankly, something that belongs to the deep south of America in the 1950's"

Reverend David Pargeter, from the Uniting Church's Synod of Victoria and Tasmania, said: "When a Government minister, on the eve of an election, connects violent action with one particular cultural group, we know we have reached deeply into the darkness of racial politics."

The big question is, if this one doesn't bite in the polls, what will the next target be in "race card" stakes, my educated guessing facilities and liberal party insiders tell me, one legged Latvians with boils, and not a moment too soon.

Ms Pauline Hanson on One Legged Latvians with Boils:

Speaking at a Gold Coast Media Club function today, Ms Hanson said she welcomed the move. "It's been recorded in Victoria that there is a 25 per cent increase in HIV. There is TB, and a case of leprosy which has been recorded in South Australia."

Ms Hanson said the Federal Government had a responsibility to ensure the safety of Australians.

"You can't bring people into the country who are incompatible with our way of life and dual legged culture," she said, "what would happen if one of them hopped on your child?"

"They get around in gangs hopping and there is escalating crime that is happening."

No matter what anyone says, Ms Hanson has a Ph.d in facts, which is a pity as she sullys the reputation of all mail order doctorates from bizarre unaccredited US christian universities every time she opens her mouth.

Liberal Race card De jour:

1776-1945: jews, black fellas, asians, Irish, Scotts, Latvians, in fact anyone who didnt come from England.

1824-the death of harold holt: asians

pre-1983: Vietnamese (but only after we had welcomed them during the fraser years)

1980's to early 1990's : Asians

1996 to sept 11/2001: aboriginals and anorexic communist lesbians

sept 2001 - 2007: muslims, afghanis, iraqis, boats

2007- :black africans

to join the game of playing the race card, just pluck out one of Kevin Andrews statements and insert any of the above, down a shot, paste in one of above and down a shot. Works along similar lines to the game of Hitler De Jour.

http://www.reportage.uts.edu.au/stories/2002/political/tampatruths.html

09:00 – Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade SITREP 59 forwarded to Howard, Reith, Ruddock and “secret list” of Anderson, Costello, Williams and Downer. “There is no reference to children thrown overboard in the reports”. (DFAT spokesman Geoff Raby, Senate Estimates 21/2/02)
Howard says: “I express my anger at the behaviour of those people and I repeat it. I can’t comprehend how genuine refugees would throw their children overboard.”
The boat SIEV 4 sinks.

http://www.truthoverboard.com/story8.html

of course there are other opinions of our governments love of the race card, while they are not flattering towards Howard, they are, of course, welcome contributors to the debate:

http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php/immigration-and-john-howard-145570.html

if you cant be with the one you love, love the white within.

........................................................................................................

you know Bush's army is on the slide, welcome to the return of Fragging:

“(The military) is definitely holding back,” said Canavan. “As to why we can only speculate.”
She said it could take anywhere from three weeks to three months for her sister’s autopsy report to be released.
Officials initially told the family Durkin was “killed in action” but changed their story over the weekend, saying she perished from “non-combat related” injuries.

http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1035668

http://news.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1035640

...............................................................................................

the joke that is the war on terror:

But in their opening statements, the defense attorneys said that their clients had only feigned interest in terrorism to win the $50,000 that the FBI informants, posing as al-Qaeda representatives, were dangling before them.
Despite a wealth of wiretaps and videotapes made of the defendants, the defense noted, there is scant evidence that the men expressed any interest in al-Qaeda when they were not in the presence of the informants -- indicating that it was only an act tailored to that audience.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/02/AR2007100202170.html

the evil that we all do edition

2007-09-20T14:36:00.000+10:00

the banality of evil is laid out perfectly in this newly discovered set of photos taken at Auschwitz by an SS Officer in 1944.

http://www.ushmm.org/research/collections/highlights/auschwitz/?content=2

the banality of evil pt 2:

the war on terror sure breeds hypocrisy at an alarming rate, if you are an exeutive from a large US corporation, you may directly sponsor terrorists and drug dealers, who in turn will guarantee your profits, which you will in turn hand a small percentage over to the US government. The worst that will happen to you is your share price will fall a fraction.

A federal court on Monday accepted a plea agreement between the Justice Department and Chiquita Brands International Inc. that imposes a $25 million fine on the company for payments it made to Colombian narcoterrorist groups.

The Justice Department said in a sentencing memo last week that it had decided against charging 10 company executives involved in the payoffs.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/17/business/main3270398.shtml

compare this "special" brand of justice with these:

24 years in prison in a case that will in future be looked upon with shame.

Hamid Hayat, a hapless young man with a sixth grade education, was convicted of 2 counts of lying to the FBI and one coutn of providing "material support" to Al Qaeda.

http://blog.law.northwestern.edu/bluhm/2006/05/hamid_and_umer_.html

Defense attorney Nancy Hollander said prosecutors built their case on the word of one Israeli official who testified under a false name, and showed the jury only selective evidence.
"Who is it that's being deceptive?" she asked jurors. "Do you really trust the government?"

http://www.courttv.com/news/2007/0918/charity_ap.html

or the almost funny Sears Plot, where a couple of FBI undercover agents managed to "convince" a straggly bunch of semi-christians to support Al Queda. the plot involved blowing up the sears building despite the fact that the only people with access to explosives were the FBI agents, the only people who talked about manufacturing explosives were the FBI agents and the ones who intiated the plot were in fact, you guessed it, the FBI agents. The "plotters" will I estimate get 20 + years.

Defense lawyers and supporters of the so-called ''Liberty City Seven'' say the men never sought to hurt anyone and amassed only one gun and a few knives and machetes. They say the alleged terror conspiracy was driven by a pair of paid FBI informants -- one claiming to be an al-Qaida emissary.
''These guys never left the United States. They never traveled to the Middle East,'' said Albert Levin, attorney for defendant Patrick Abraham. ''They never had any way of carrying out what was discussed. This was pure words.''

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/560718,CST-NWS-terr17.article

or what about

At issue in El-Masri v. U.S. is the government's use of the so-called state-secrets privilege. The judicial doctrine provides that some legal cases must be dismissed if the central evidence in the court battle would require disclosure of national security secrets. The Bush administration is using the same doctrine to block a string of legal challenges to other secret terror-war tactics, including warrantless electronic surveillance in the U.S.
Masri's lawyers say he is not seeking to disclose secrets; he just wants to have U.S. officials held accountable for their alleged treatment of him, which has already been made public.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/19/terror/main3274299.shtml

or the Padilla Case

or....it just goes on and on

and if you are an anti castro cuban terrorist, run free little birdie, go bring down another passenger liner.

or If you the pentagons man in Iraq like Illad Allawi, you can plant car bombs in any middle eastern city you like and the worst that will happen is you are made Prime Minister with Bushes full support.

one of the many tragics costs in the Iraqi quagmire, of course if you listen to our leaders its all going so very, very well.

Police efforts to break the power of the looters, now with a well-organised support structure helped by tribal leaders, have proved lethal. In 2005, the Iraqi customs arrested – with the help of Western troops – several antiquities dealers in the town of Al Fajr, near Nasseriyah. They seized hundreds of artefacts and decided to take them to the museum in Baghdad. It was a fatal mistake.
The convoy was stopped a few miles from Baghdad, eight of the customs agents were murdered, and their bodies burnt and left to rot in the desert. The artefacts disappeared. "It was a clear message from the antiquities dealers to the world," Ms Farchakh says.

http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/article2970762.ece

life in saudi arabia, admittedly, written by an interested ex-pat

http://muttawa.blogspot.com/

In sharp contrast to the lionisation of Gen. David Petraeus by members of the U.S. Congress during his testimony this week, Petraeus's superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (CENTCOM), derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad last March, according to Pentagon sources familiar with reports of the meeting. Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chickenshit" and added, "I hate people like that", the sources say. That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior.

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39235

my child hood, writ large ayn rand style:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/15/business/15atlas.html?ei=5087%0A&em=&en=a452c5a143f0a472&ex=1190260800&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1190246987-CG7w2C0ZFNpizve1BF16uQ

minky shines

2007-08-15T13:01:00.000+10:00

Most ridiculous item of the day:

The Bush administration is preparing to declare that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps is a foreign terrorist organization, senior administration officials said Tuesday.

Its more than a little like declaring the US Marines a terrorist organisation, but then the Bushies are doing all they can to provoke a jump in the Republican polls by doing something nastier to Iran than just making any old shit up. Guess they must be getting frustrated with all those "intelligence reports" having gaping holes poked in them by anyone who's curious enough to think.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/15/world/middleeast/15diplo.html?hp

Followed by the re-emergence from hiding of Pauline Hanson, who apparently has forgiven the Asians for daring to bring down whitely by living in Australia, she now knows the real problem was them pesky Muslims daring to bring down whitely by living anywhere by Muslimvania. I wish her all the best mining that rich vein of public funding that goes with losing at an election, so much more lucrative than the dole, eh Pauline.

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Now I'm not one to rub shit in the face of a monkey, even if its the monkey who threw the shit in the first place, animals have the right to express their perfectly valid opinions in whichever medium they or evolution sees fit. So I shall just try and let these monkeys hurl it all in their own style. Off the record, of course.

background:

TREASURER Peter Costello vowed 2½ years ago to destroy John Howard's leadership if the Prime Minister did not hand over the reins.

PM Lyin Rodent:

"Mr Costello and I have a wonderful, harmonious, professional relationship."

Disgruntled Goat, Costello:

Now:

"I'm not going to get into an argument with them," he told reporters today.
"They have their recollections, I certainly have mine."

"I have never urged supporters of mine to carp against the prime minister nor have I ever urged supporters of mine to do anything which would undermine the Liberal Party," he said.
"In the course of that dinner a lot of things were said, a lot of very interesting things were said.

"But I want to make it clear that I have never carped against the prime minister nor did I ever go to the backbench."

A short time ago, in the far off distant land of Ticker:

he predicted Mr Howard could not win the coming election.
In a conversation that revealed the depth of his disdain for the Prime Minister, Mr Costello set a deadline of April 2006 for Mr Howard to hand him the leadership. If this did not occur, he vowed he would challenge the Prime Minister.
He recognised that he was unlikely to win such a challenge, but said he would go to the back bench and foment turmoil. He said he would "carp" at Mr Howard's leadership and "destroy it".

Liberal Party needed him as leader if it was to win this year's election. And he declared Mr Howard would have no chance with any other deputy.
Why would he risk everything on such drastic action, Mr Costello was asked. "Because he (Howard) will lose the election," the Treasurer said.
"He can't win. I can. We can, but he can't."

The possibly sober journos:

"We're simply putting on the record what he says that he never said."
Mr Wright said he took notes during the dinner, which was attended by him and his then-Bulletin colleague Paul Daley as well as ABC journalist Michael Brissenden.
He said the dinner became "quite spectacular in its language" about how Mr Costello wanted Mr Howard to step aside and allow him to become prime minister.
Mr Costello told them that if Mr Howard didn't stand aside or he lost a leadership challenge, he would "blast him out", Mr Wright said.
"(He said) if he didn't (win), he would be prepared to go on the backbench and carp .. that was his word," he said.

"I think it matters because it is about integrity and honesty."

the very reasonable, Federal Liberal Candidate Hamish Jones:

describing Victorian Public Transport Minister Lynne Kosky as a "fuckwit" and a "bitch".

describes former federal Liberal minister Dana Vale as a "dickkhead" and says he was appalled that Holocaust denier David Irving received a three-year jail term.

describes the former premier as a "terrorist supporter" for failing to disendorse controversial Islamic candidate Khalil Eideh.

"If only Bracks, or one of his ministers, could be caught with kiddie porn, then maybe there would be some interest in this f..king boring campaign."

The one-time phone salesman supports parents having to obtain a "baby licence" to reproduce and boasts about taking on "union hack" Bill Shorten, the Labor high-flyer expected to win Maribyrnong.

LIBERAL backbencher Wilson Tuckey:

letter reportedly said it told Mr Howard that he continued to lag Kevin Rudd in the polls and "it was time to stand down".

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for the joys of bringing that old time religion to a school near u:

http://blog.au.org/2007/08/09/trouble-in-texas-school-board-chairman-seeks-religion-in-science-class/

states of delusion

2007-08-06T11:44:00.000+10:00

Our PM?

The PM says the states are borrowing $70 billion, the PM also says the feds are saving $70 billion. Doesnt that mean the states are simply paying for what the feds are refusing to fund.

For me with my boring life, I hate to say it but the internet is too damned slow, and by that I mean that life is just too damned slow, I can see where its all heading, but it just takes too damned long to get there. I want it and I want it well before it happens. Fcuk the 24 hour news cycle, I demand the 24 minute cycle, with everything Ive thought in the past 24 minutes answered and resolved, preferably in a manner I approve of.

Evryday I am overwhlemed by the shere amount of panic that has overwhelmed the Howard Government, if its not the forced "crisis de jour" that Howard is inventing, its the ineptitude of his and his ministers response's and the blatant stupidity of his attack on Labor. Surely he must know that by inventing a crisis a day, it just focuses peoples attention away from whatever it is has achieved and makes them wonder where the hell the people in charge have been for the past 11 years, espcially as he is still running arguments based on Keating /Hawke years, which just open up the Fraser/Howard years to scrutiny, not something Howard wants in any way. So each day I read and think and wonder, when is the old fart gonna go and do what he threatens us with, letting the people decide.

Do I really have to wait till february for some good news Little Old Devious Johhny, cant I have just a taste of that free democracy you are promising the Queenslanders, right here, right now, before I have to see another one of those dozen or so bullshit government ad's that are interupting my spank fest while watching americas next top model.

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I, Terrorist

Virginia Trioli talks to Joseph Felter from the Combating Terrorism Centre

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Let's go into just one more of those categories and that is the one lower down the list from demonstrated threat to associated threat. I will read out what defines that category. "If you had a connection to a member of Al Qaeda or another group, if you'd stayed at a suspect guest house, had travelled to three or more countries, were carrying large amounts of foreign currency...

Why is any of that or even one of those aspects enough to have you classified as an enemy combatant and have you locked up for six years?

JOE FELTER: That's why we called it an associative threat. We define it as activities or attributes associated would other terrorists. We're careful not to say any one of these in particular was enough evidence to warrant an enemy combatantant status but we thought it was something to be concerned about. If you were carrying many thousands of dollars in a remote province of Afghanistan, that's something to be concerned about.

I have done all of these things in my offical capacity as a tourist, each and every one, I can now offically be declared a terrorist and spend a few years on holiday in Gitmo. My reaction, bring it on, I am so sick of this shit, all of it.

But then again, here's a different story from the war on terror:

After years of almost total silence on his son's arrest and imprisonment, Frank Lindh sets the record straight about the 'American Taliban.'

http://www.alternet.org/story/31211/?page=1

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http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/10/2001351.htm

Howards lapdog, ex Peter Reith protege and sleeping partner, Peter Hendy is up to his usual Liberal inspired bullshit, pumping out an "independent" report (one of his many before the election no doubt) that claims that the world will end the moment a Labor Government is elected. I beleive they also link joining a union to instantly getting cancer and that non-unionists get more pussy or at the very least their kindly bosses are more then willing to negotiate "Pussy" breaks in their AWA's, unlike the Communist regime of Rudd which will do as Marx said institute "commmunal women". Am I scared, only by the shere amount of coverage this skewed, bogus report will get in the Murdoch press.

http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/07/25/abcc-and-econtech-flawed-assumptions-biased-report/

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My favourite peice of spam for the week

Subject:
When I tried to give him oral sex, I practically choked. How do I do it without gagging? Please help!

body and answer:
Chicks always srieked at me and even blokes did in the not private toilet!Well, now I smil at them, because I took M E _G_A_D_ IKfor 7 months and now my phallus is extremely more than average

Needless to say, I have ordered six packets of Megadik and a manual on the Heimlich Manouver.
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what australian's owe the banks= $1 trillion dollars

Interest paid= $1 in every $8 earned

Average monthly increase in debt for australians over the past 12 months: $10 billion plus

Wheres that Liberal Party debt truck when you need to add it all up?

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Why would anyone not trust our PM, could it be that every sentence that slips from his mouth is parsed within a lawyers degree of the truth and riddled with strawmen.

7.30 report:

KERRY O'BRIEN: He (the reserve bank govenator) says that states borrowing money won't feed directly into the consumer price index.

JOHN HOWARD: I don't think anybody would suggest that unlimited borrowings by either a state or federal government has no impact at all on the inflationary environment and therefore some ultimate impact on interest rates otherwise we'd be turning economic theory of the last 30 years totally on its head.

Its true, nobody, absolutely nobody has ever suggested "unlimited borrowings" in any way shape or form except the PM.

On his intervention in the tasmanian marginal seat

JOHN HOWARD: Can I say that the Health Minister, Mr Abbott, went to Tasmania today and had a meeting with the Tasmanian Health Minister and to say the least the Tasmanian Government is being extremely uncooperative, which I think is very poor. I would have thought the Tasmanian Government would have welcomed with open arms the fact that we are willing to inject up to another $45 million to $50 million a year into the health system in northern Tasmania and for the Tasmanian Health Minister to say in effect well, we're going to spite the Federal Government because we don't like the idea of the Federal Government being involved, shows an arrogant disregard for the interests of the people in Devonport and the people of northern Tasmania.

Would you be co-operative with a burglar breaking into your home, maybe passing the dvd player out the ever so tight windows, just in case he injures himself on the way out?

Lets take a look at that one statement, "arrogant disregard", what do you call a dawn raid on a states hopital, for what even the PM says are purely political purposes where you dont bother contacting the states Premier or Health Minister (I imagine, so they dont spoil the photo op), threatening to cut off the states health funding and not being able to tell anyone on the day wether the $45-50 million will be coming out of the states allocation. A week later the PM sends his lapdog down to tell the Tasmanian minister what the PM is going to do, not consult, just tell, theres no arrogance in that, there's no spite in the accusations that the states are clearly to blame for evrything bad that has occured under the PMs watch either.

And cooperation, now why the hell would anyone co-operate with a government which has so far (well since polling shows it may be Howards only winner) blamed everything of the "incompetence" of the "2nd 11" of politics, the state governments, despite the fact that all the states governments are at least twice as popular as Howards fiasco ridden rabble. All thats good flows from me, all bad is yours to own, what a brillaint philosophy to work cooperativly with, edward de bono would be proud.

The funniest thing for me is the fact that the state of the state liberals is just laughable, to the point where in state elections Howard is loath to even appear on the same stage as the Liberal Leaders. Durring the recent NSW election spent many pained minutes at the side of the utterely hapless Debnam, with neither side willing to be seen in fulsome endorsement of the other. The Victorian election was the same, with Ted "the budgie" B, hardly glowing in his embrace of the IR laws (until after the election) and the PM in town only long enough to bring the already low standing of the state libs to a just above gutter level. For all the PM's huff and puff on the dangers of wall to wall labor, he really cant risk the electorate focusing on the state liberals who are in total dissaray across the country, either infiltrated by bizzarre right wing christian cults branch stacking (Qld, NSW, Vic) or letting their infighting spill blood across the frontpages (Qld, NSW, Vic, Sa, WA) or just plain old batshit crazy incompetent (NSW, QLD, VIC).

Howard has made the plea to his state counterparts to stop the infighting and at least pretend to have policies in place a few days before the elections are called, he has made the plea for at least the past six years, with little in the way of a response so far. Is it any wonder the Libs in Victoria are cutting funding for the state branch to focus on the federal election, neutering Ted B in the process and making him look like a fool with even less control over his powerless coalition. Or the Queensland Libs who fight each other harder in the press than they do the Beatie Government and who are constantly involved in scandals like the still unresolved "Printergate" one, which has so far immeshed three federal libs in the slime.

The question the electorate should be asking Howard is, what kind of shitbox state would this country be in if the Libs ruled the country, coast to coast, when clearly none of the state liberal leaders should be left in charge of a kitten or a box of matches without adult supervision and safety mittens on their hands?
...............................................................
Pre-election cash giveaway

The worst aspect of it all is the shere fiscal irresponsibilty of the PM's pre-election giveaways, at the beggining of Indigneous Crisis, his handouts amounted to $7.5 billion and that was assuming that the intervention was going to cost "tens of millions", now we know that it will cost close to $600 million, the crisis intervention in Tasmania will cost a further $200-300 million over the coming years and the PM's ridiculous "who ever wants a referendum, can have one" pledge for queensland. Then add in the $10 billion for the Murray Darling, which still is really still uncosted, and a bit of a wild guess, much like the plans outcomes, which read like a pitch at a land far, far away, with the proposed outcomes and water savings not kicking in until, wait for it, 2024, and even modest gains not going to be recorded until 2012 (and even thats on the most opptomistic estimates, and they are the only ones given by Howard). If the Murray Darling plan is starting to sound more than a little like the PM's Global Warming strategy, dont do anything now, just push a truck load of dollars at the vested interest groups and promise to do something, maybe, in the distant future, well its all writen on the same envelope sitting in the PM's office if you want to check his figures.

He will be handing out lots of little gifts like the $4 million to a failing eden-monaro wood mill (amazing how his largess is largessly in marginal liberal seats), all of which will inevitably feed into the federal reserve needing to push up interest rates, and considering he hasnt as yet reached the campaign, which will bring about an absolute flood of cash for your votes, Mr stevens must be tearing his hair out with treasury sectretary Ken Henry worrying about what will happen IF the libs get back in.

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For a good laugh, go here, learn the horrifying secrets of the Greens, they have lesbians as members of thier party, and not just the good lesbians you see in those Penthouse documentaries, but the kind of "extremist" ones that wont let you watch. I was so shocked. We can be proud that such patriots are on the lookout for poor schmo's who may well be voting on such issues or be worried that thier local greens candidate is a communist, I know thats always my first policy consideration. Imagine, a lesbian communist extremist, makes Osama look like a boy scout. What next will we be making gay compulsory, we will if the greens get in.

http://www.greenswatch.com/

http://www.deadroo.com/index.php/greens-watch-kieran-is-a-crackpot/

which is equally as much fun, but slightly different, in a confessional kind of way.
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From Lateline Friday, more myths from the War on Terror:

Joseph Felter from the Combating Terrorism Centre at the West Point Military Academy:

We need to make sure that if we hold people there that we can demonstrate in the open source arena that we have information that is incriminating, that demonstrates they're a threat. I think it's up to 30 individuals that have been released from Guantanamo Bay have subsequently been picked up on the battlefield. That's concerning. We have to be careful who we let out on the streets so to speak and whether they're going to return to the battlefield and threaten or interests.

A completely made up fact coming from the Whitehouse and Pentagon, they can confirm that 3 people from Gitmo have been picked up on the battlefield, but then the battlefield stretches across the globe, the rest of the number is an approximation, including "unknown remains" from sucide bombings which may belong to ex-gitmo detainees, or just persons who have been in Gitmo who have been arrested in their own countries for anything or even re-arrested for the exact same charge they were orginally in Gitmo for and released.

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1 more reason why Rumsfeld should be in jail:

"I really find it hard to believe that the secretary of defence of the United States has no idea about the star witness for a criminal case being anonymous."

After Donald Rumsfeld blew his cover, he was bundled out of Iraq very quickly and lived under armed protection for the first six months.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6930197.stm

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From Iraq: only the good news

The Sunni's in the Iraqi Government have finally reached a concensus. The only problem is the concensus is that they no longer have any faith or trus to work with the Malaki regime and have all walked out.

Mosul Dam on Brink of Breach?

Catastrophic Flood Could Put 70% of Mosul Underwater

"It could go at any minute," a senior aid worker who has knowledge of the struggle by US and Iraqi engineers to save the dam told the UK Independent. "The potential for disaster is very great."
Flood waters resulting from a dam breach could destroy 70 percent of Mosul and inflict heavy damage 190 miles downstream along the Tigris. The humanitarian disaster that would result represents a nightmare scenario for the Iraqi and US government, as lack of disaster-response capability would make search and rescue extremely difficult.

http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/3862/Mosul_Dam_on_Brink_of_Breach

the 499

2007-08-03T10:22:00.000+10:00

Is it a record? 499 broken promises in under 5 hours.

Wednesday, the PM takes over a Tasmania Hospital. Says its one of many, a radical shift in the underlying ecology of the entire state/federal relationship and absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Braddon is one of the Libs most marginal seats, nothing, he didn't even realise it before jetting down there, he just assumed that every seat in the country was a safe liberal seat surrounded by evil labor state governments.

Thursday morning, Tony Abbott calls for any other hospitals in similar positions to call him and the Feds will look at doing the same. Claims that his phone has been ringing off the hook with queries and people just begging to be given that "special" treatment by the PM.

Thursday Noon, Tony Abbot is still on, "just call me, have we got a deal for you" this is of "seismic significance". Yes but can it be seen from the moon?

Thursday, 5.00pm, Tony now says the Tasmanian deal is a one off, "unique" situation, stop calling coz the deal he was spruiking a few hours ago was a mis-print and that in fact maybe he never said it at all, a very clever imitator had been wandering the nation selling false info.

The funniest thing is that as of 12.00 today, no paper is reporting Abbots "unique" comments, just his original offer, which leads me to wonder whether he has made another U-turn or if the media in general just forgot what he said coz he has made so many flip flops before that they may as well just report the one that seems right. Such details are so unimportant in comparison to a headline.

The AMA were quick to point out when the PM did the power grab that there were some 500 hospitals in similar circumstances, so that means that there are 499 broken promises by this government in a mere 5 hours, surely a world record. I would be happy to be contradicted on this.

Meanwhile, once the photo-op was over for the PM and the headlines read $45 million, the details just happened to get lost.

Was it $45 million in new money, or $45 million of old money taken straight from the Tasmanian budget, ummmm, who knows. Will the PM now cut the Tasmanian allocation of federal funding by $45 million? How did he get the figure of $45 million to run the hospital, all previous figures to run the hospital said the running cost was closer to $60 million, so that's a fair few layoffs to get to the PM's number. Was this another of the PM's back of an envelope jobs? What services would be provided, same, different, ....who knows?

Where were the doctors coming from? ummmmmm, who knows. Will the newly acquired federal staff be placed under AWA's? ummmm.... Some detail would be nice, any detail, please...? once the cameras stop, and the headlines fade, who the hell cares, the PM got front page and a lot of PR for doing little more than making a lot of hot air.

And if he now reneges on Tony Abbots earlier promises, does that mean the cost of adding a few percentage points to the libs popularity in one seat, will mean a loss of popularity in 499 towns?

PETER COSTELLO: Well look this is an announcement that's been made in relation to a particular hospital and I think it's very welcome. The hospital would have closed otherwise and the Federal Government has been able to step in and to save that hospital.

Then there's the government Lie's, the hospital was not about to be closed and petes not gonna stand by and let a general principle become a general principal. I am confused, one arm of Howard is saying that its for all hospitals in a similar position, Howard's other hand is waving about saying its not. Which is it,or is it on a polling margin by polling margin basis? More tax payer funded focus groups please so the government can sort out its next advertising blitz.

Of course, not that this has anything to do with politics, but Friar Abbot attacked Rudd, accusing him of "far too much fudge and waffle" in refusing to instantly agree with whatever it really is that Abbot and Howard have said, which is funny considering that Kevin Andrews attacked Rudd for agreeing with the government last week. In a pre-election atmosphere, being terminally confused and an unmedicated sufferer of bi-polar disorder as a strategy has a certain, cant lose, quality to it.

After yet another rash, brash, piece of purely political vote buying masquerading as policy, doesn't it just show how desperate Howard is to get his face on the front page of a newspaper with a good news byline, as opposed to his usual flailing panic stricken sunken self. Whats $45 million if it means the PM gets a few more votes, surely the country can afford to let the man give away pork barrelled sandwiches after 11 years of Sterling service to himself, the libs and various bizarre christian cults.

Meanwhile we just have to look forward to a government that governs on principals that are made up on the back of postage stamps, changes its stance hourly and by the minister you happen to talk to. The funniest thing to me is that the Australian today branded this a winner for Howard, when you walk all sides to the street at all hours, how can you lose?

Who do you trust to tell you whatever you want to hear? the answers not hard...its either fox news or.....

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Remember this statement from the Treasurer P. Costello
"the governments broadband policy will not cost the taxpayer one cent"

well it appears that the statement is true, it will cost one billion dollars, and grew in costs from $600 million when the government finally put away the envelope it normally works its costings on and bought a calculator. At least that's what Telstra are suing the Government for.

Telstra spokesman Jeremy Mitchell says the Minister has refused to provide documents explaining her decision to reject the company's bid.

"We just want to find out the truth," he said. "Were the goal posts changed and were others given information that we weren't entitled to?"

another revolving, evolving, flapping about policy from Howard, more amusing by the ever changing hour.

The NSW Liberal Right: a land of the bizarre, a home of the extreme

Michael Towke, the Liberal candidate for the New South Wales seat of Cook, has sparked a string of controversy with his dubious resume and complete refusal to talk to the media.

http://www.deadroo.com/index.php/dead-roo-profile-the-mysterious-michael-towke/

AWA fun:

get paid $3.00 an hour for the honor of being "employed", get charged $12,000 for the honor of being trained. As Joe Hockey says, "its complicated". Sure is, must be the "sophistication" of the union campaign that has the boss confused.

or

Ms Piper said she was sometimes made to wait around for up to an hour after she was due to start her rostered shift before management deemed the restaurant busy enough for her shift to begin. Mr Wilson said his agency was still investigating claims that young workers were made to supply their own money floats each day so that cash could be deducted when a customer absconded without paying the bill.

Nothing somistomphacted about that.

or

Two trolley collection companies have underpaid workers by almost $300,000, Workplace Ombudsman Nicholas Wilson says. Mr Wilson alleges some 135 trolley collectors have been underpaid by Risborg Pty Ltd and MK Angelopolous Pty Ltd.

Mr Wilson alleged Risborg underpaid some 130 of its casual trolley collectors by about $250,000. The company also paid the workers as little as $6.50 an hour - well below the federal minimum wage of $16.16 an hour, Mr Wilson alleged. He alleged MK Angelopolous underpaid five of their trolley collectors by more than $28,000. "Trolley collector workers are often the most vulnerable of the vulnerable in the workforce and in the community," Mr Wilson said in a statement. "Many of the long term unemployed and those affected by mental illness and other disabilities work in the sector.

mmm somiftificating. Must be the unions fault or Kevin Rudds.

mmm blair lite...so refreshing

2007-08-02T16:13:00.000+10:00

finally Blair lite, Kevin Rudd gets his glutes primed and his message right, pump those ab's bitch, blitz through the pain:

Rudd launches attack on Andrews
August 2, 2007

Federal Labor leader Kevin Rudd has launched his strongest attack on Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews over the Haneef case, listing a string of inconsistencies in the minister's statements.
Labor has supported in principle the government's handling of the terror case against Indian doctor Mohamed Haneef but has called for an independent judicial inquiry.

Mr Rudd went a step further today, outlining a series of inconsistent statements by Mr Andrews since the minister cancelled Dr Haneef's work visa last month.

"Take this for example - on 27 July Mr Andrews says he would not release Dr Haneef from immigration detention, on 28 July he releases Dr Haneef from immigration detention," Mr Rudd told Southern Cross Broadcasting.

"I don't know the basis for the change in that position.

"On 28 July, Mr Andrews claimed that he had no objection to Haneef leaving Australia; on 29 July Mr Andrews claimed Haneef's decision to leave actually heightened rather than lessened his suspicions.

"And on 29 July, Mr Andrews claimed that Dr Haneef attempted to fly home to India, his baby having been born for a month at that stage, and later he admitted it had only been born six days previous.

"All I'm saying is that these positions are difficult for us to understand, those most recent positions and statements by Mr Andrews."

The only way to restore public confidence that the case had been handled properly was through an independent judicial inquiry, he said.

"We're getting bits and pieces of new information every day and I think the view of your listeners and the public right across Australia is they would actually like to know the whole picture, the whole story," he said.

Rudd, Gillard and Garrett are starting to look comfortable in there roles, bring on the election.

smears aplenty

2007-08-02T09:45:00.000+10:00

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.

......................................................................

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.

weasle words can only come from the mouths of weasils

2007-08-01T10:33:00.000+10:00

Fuk me to illustrate how much Kevin Andrews fuked up, 52% of herald sun readers have backed calls for his resignation, when the most conservative, lock em up, hang em and worry about guilt or innocence afterwards crowd calls your decisions fuked, you are truly fuked.

.............................................

Eels are slimy, but they taste great, weasels are, well weaselly, but I have no personal experience of how they taste, I just know that going on the previous few weeks, they must be a very dark, bitter, self serving flavour, topped by a big dash of hubris sauce and flambeed in arrogance by the grand chef of the elite, Downer.

smears and weasels

"He's done numerous press conference in India ... why didn't this bloke actually turn up and front the Australian media and let them ask questions?" he said.

Except that he was shepherded by a phalanx of immigration department staff, and he did give an exclusive interview to 60 minutes, so the minister is completely wrong.

"As far as I'm aware there's nothing that's been left out of that."

except the original, what we have is an AFP translation, maybe accurate, maybe inaccurate and we have been told all along that Haneef had a full and complete explanation in the still "secret" second interview which Andrews has not sought to be released.

Andrews received advice from the solicitor general.....

Yes, too true, the solicitor general told him that he does indeed have the power to make a decision, not that the decision was good bad or utterly fuked up six ways from sunday, just that he does indeed have the power of his own portfolio, weasel words of sage advice. If the minister had asked the same question, does the PM have the power of the PM, the answer would have been the same, yes, does that prove that he is not a sniveling little piece of shit, the answer is no.

Re: the phone calls haneef made to the british police

"I came to the conclusion I did, and as I said, nothing since then has altered the position I came to. Indeed other information provided to me heightens or reiterates that suspicion in my mind."

In other words, I did not consider any information that may conflict with my opinion. You are a brave man for a weasel.

Re: the tortured release of "secret" information.

funny it was all released two weeks ago, we now just get the bits andrews has decided show him in the best light, but laughably, none of the stuff that says the opposite. Funny that.

Andrews also goes onto say that the release of any other material is entirely up to the AFP, the AFP say that it is up to the Minister to ask for the material, the minister says its up to the AFP to release it, who wont until the minister asks...gets that weasel circle going. Same goes for the original chat comments in their original language..round we go.

"Hasty"

Kev makes sure to include that word and emphasise it before the word departure. eg

"The whole circumstances surrounding Haneef's attempted hasty departure, including the chat room conversations, when viewed against his clear prior association with the Ahmed brothers, led me to form a reasonable suspicion, as required by the Act."

The clear association, his two cousins he has admitted seeing 2-3 times in the 12 months prior to the bombing, but not in the last 5 months. C'mon.

From the master of disaster, Phil Ruddock

"The system is working as intended."

If that's the case, the system is completely debased and needs to be taken out of the hands of those who debased it and replaced with something worthwhile.

Mr Andrews said he would act in the safety and interest of Australians.

If that statement is in any way true, he would have resigned.

hillsongs chequebook

2007-07-31T10:16:00.000+10:00

The central question in the Haneef case is not that he was held by the AFP and questioned, or even that the AFP acted on false information in a "keystone cops" fashion, the central point of contention is the action of the Minister for Immigration in rejecting the courts decision in favour of his own grubby, misplaced, politically inspired delusions.

The central question is should a politician (let alone one in an election year) without oversight be given the power to imprison anyone.

In an election year, with a grubby government willing to do anything to get back into power, should a politician have unrestricted power to place anyone behind bars with no oversight, no review, no limits, on their whim, then keep all of their reasons for acting placed behind the dubious rationale of national security. Our PM is once again playing his dirty little word games, referring only to the detention of Haneef by the AFP, in all his answers he mentions only the AFP case, not the one that has everyone on edge, his Ministers decision to overturn the courts and place Haneef back in jail. It smacks of political expediency, smacks of playing politics for polling gain, once more, with national security.

With the Kevin Andrews continuing to smear Haneef, then instantly hiding behind a cloak of national security, is it any wonder people are more than a little cynical, they have played that game so often in the past, making false claims, pumping out their hairy chests, then running for the cover of secrecy or blaming their departments for their own pomposity and incompetence. Andrews refrain of "if you only knew what I knew" wears very thin when he said the same things at the start of the case, and when we got to find out what it was that he knew, it just made your skin crawl that a thin tissue of quarter truths and outright distortions could land you in jail with no prospect whatsoever of being released. Clearly the laws governing the Immigration Department need to be reined in markedly, with genuine independent oversight desperately needed, just ask the 247 Australian citizens who have been locked away for up to six years on the back of the unlimited powers given the bureaucrats and incompetents fools governing their supposed oversight, eg, amanda vanstone, phil "disaster" ruddock and now the first fool in the workchoices fuck up, Kevin Andrews.

Kev is trying to squirm out of an inquiry by claiming that theres been inquiry's at every step.

"This process has been overseen by the judiciary at every step," he said.

Except when you overturned the results of the judiciary and placed Haneef back in detention, based on the same flimsy evidence that the magistrate saw and granted bail over.

Andrew Bartlett of the Dems said it best

"I was half expecting them to come out today and say Dr Haneef had all the weapons of mass destruction that we've been looking for all along."

The Howard Government will try one more wedge issue on National Security before the election, an increase in the governments powers, reflecting those that are in place in the UK. They will of course be hoping that Rudd will oppose them so they can accuse him of being weak on national security, but why would anyone let those clowns in power now have more power and less oversight on the back of this case. If we follow the UK rules, none of the bullshit surrounding this case could possibly have emerged, none of the already lax oversight, mainly by the press, could have occurred and two years down the track Haneef would have emerged from the process blinking in sunshine, wondering where his life has gone. Who in their right mind could endorse giving these people more power to play politics with individuals lives, especially as we know that no one will pay any penalty for utter incompetence or venal disregard for the rule of law.

If national security is truly important to this government, then an independent inquiry is crucial to get to the heart of this issue, or will the same incompetence rule the nation in the face of what Howard declares to be "a threat to our very way of life." What a joke, the real threat lies behind the ministers stuff up.

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Lots of headlines will proclaim one thing, THE SURGE IS WORKING. This will be based upon one simple little fact, the number of US soldiers dying in the meatgrinder that is Iraq has fallen to its lowest level all year, a mere 77 dead in comparison to the average of well over a hundred.

One problem, July is, for any number of reasons, always the lowest month of the year for casualties, and in fact this July is the deadliest in the sordid history of the war, so the headlines should read, Surge Failing, provided you don't cherry pick the facts.

July 2007: 77

July 2006: 46

July 2005: 58

July 2004: 58

July 2003: 49

2007-07-30T12:29:00.000+10:00

The idea that all progress is forward is utterly dispelled by this remarkable artifact, knowledge can just as easily be lost as well as well as built upon. I spent a part of my childhood devouring Erik Von Danikens explanations of this device, he call it an ancient "computer" brought to us from the furthest reaches of the stars by celestial visitors, I prefer the real version of what it is, so much more romantic than the idea that it may have been ET's bowel movement conversion kit.

http://richarddawkins.net/article,392,In-Search-of-Lost-Time,Jo-Marchant--Nature

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A very simple plea, Kevin Andrews QUIT, right here, right now, right this very minute, do not pass go, do not try to collect an overseas diplomatic posting, just get the fuck outa a place you are clearly not fit to be in, a position of responsibility. But then the reality hits, its the Howard Government, no matter how incompetent, the minister stays, according to Howard there's only one judgement that counts, the voters, so let them decide Mr Pm.

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When the Howard government gets thrown out on its well padded, pork barrelled arse, how many of these will we see revealed.

Bush Aide Blocked Report

Global Health Draft In 2006

Rejected for Not Being Political

A surgeon general's report in 2006 that called on Americans to help tackle global health problems has been kept from the public by a Bush political appointee without any background or expertise in medicine or public health, chiefly because the report did not promote the administration's policy accomplishments, according to current and former public health officials.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/28/AR2007072801420.html

Now we have a $100 million campaign for Workchoices being endless repeated across our tv screens, with politicised public servants spruiking for their jobs, how many reports will we see revealed once checks and balances are restored in the senate. For example the building watchdog commissioned report, commissioned by the building watchdog and whose conclusion can be summed up in a few very short words "building commission good, unions bad", what a fucking surprise there. A report commissioned by the watchdog telling the watchdog what a wonderful job its doing, based upon the data supplied entirely by the watchdog itself, then leaked in a wonderfully strategic fashion, where none of the data given can be evaluated, just the conclusion the watchdog gives to itself. And, heaven forbid, the "independent" group conducting the report are closely tied to the Liberal party, now that's what I like to see, the governments own agencies, free, fair and balanced, contorted into strange shapes to blow smoke up their own arse's. So how much did I pay for that one?

And speaking of workchoices, how much are we paying to have our pay and conditions stripped away:

$56 million to promote the original work choices

$300 million to "regulate" the original workchoices

the add $100 million (or there abouts, we wont know till senate estimates can pull a figure from Joe Hockeys arse in a protracted and painful process) for the current update on workchoices ads.

add $476 million plus to the original 300 for administering the "simpler", "fairer" adjunct to the the simple and fair workchoices legislation.

What an outrageously expensive joke this government has become, can we afford to laugh at the punchline, ourselves.

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blame it on the bullshit: the week in review

2007-07-27T10:46:00.000+10:00

A game for all the family, whenever a federal government minister is asked a question about Iraq, count the number of times they mention Al Queda. See if you can keep up.

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When the Haneef case was first revealed, Little Old Johnie and his first rate team of experts, puffed out their chests and demanded that the electorate look at how big they were in handling terrorism cases, how extra-minty strong they were on national security. Over scenes of blazing cars in the UK, Howard and his minions, trumpeted their credentials, overrode the justice system and did all they could to link their old order to the detention and deportation of a single man, a dusky skinned foreigner at that.

In 2001, they could play that card for all its worth and sit back and expect the voters to lap it up, Tampa showed just how far the voters were willing to suspend all sense of fairness and truth, in the search for that elusive goal of total national "security". How the world has changed.
Nowadays we have had so many lies and blatant distortions thrown in our face in the name of the "war on terror", that even such bastions of suspended disbelief, the herald/sun and the Australian, start to question the underlying assumptions of the governments self serving pronouncements, of courses that's always after trumpeting the government line for a day or so.

Our PM, when Haneef was first arrested: "I will say that Dr Haneef is entitled, like any other person, to a presumption of innocence."

.....but...

"All of this is a reminder that terrorism is a global threat. You can't pick and choose where you fight terrorism. You can't say I'll fight it over there but I won't fight it here. It's also fair to say that the anti-terrorism laws that this Government has enacted are all, to their very last clause needed … If we need to strengthen them, we will … But I am not going to make any comment about Dr Haneef's case."

The PM puffs out his chest and brands the man a terrorist, ties him in with Iraq, ties him in with his own desire to beef up laws that were not needed in any case, but then the case falls apart. Falls apart even though the Immigration minister has told the world that innocence or guilt or justice will play no part in his man handling of the case. In the old days the arrest and deportation of a foreigner would have given Howard an instant boost in the ratings, his declaration would have run along the tampa line, "we will decide who comes to this country" or he might have branded Haneef "the worst of the worst" as he did with David Hicks and then let the matter drag on for as long as possible to get the most traction in the polls. Well the Hicks case, as Michelle Gratten points out in the age today, was probably the straw that broke the camels back. The people are no longer prepared to sit back and allow the lie to continue a minute longer than the burden of proof allows. Perhaps the Hicks case simple allowed the public to grasp hold of a face, a real life person, an individual, upon whom the injustices of the war on terror can be visited and not just a government slogan about their own sheriffs status.

If the government wonders why its falling so low in the polls, its a simple matter of 11 years of outright lies accumulating until even the most blind can see that they are being spun a right load of bollocks, yet again. The perception of the public has shifted and repeating the same falsehoods to an already skeptical public just reinforces the idea that you are being fed a right load of crap, and nothing, except a complete, bald reversal on everything you've stood for can alter that ie: global warming. That then runs the risk that you seen as being in a total, flailing panic, and that's what we have at every turn, the last days of Howard have turned into one crisis after another, from water, to climate, to indigenous affairs, to housing, to interest rates, to ...the list is endless. In the lead up to the seemingly never to come election, the politics of fear are being ramped up to an hysterical level, if you cant win the voters with ideas, you can win them over with a dozen phony crisis, but that then makes people wonder, who's been in power while all these "crisis" have been allowed to occurred.

Of course, then there's the government denial that this or anything else in their arsenal of bullshit has anything to do with politics, the only people who play politics are the opposition. So we have Downer, the incompetent fool Ruddock, and the Pm himself actually blaming Rudd for agreeing with them, declaring a vast conspiracy of Labor leaders in order to play politics with an issue they claim has no political value. For fuks sake.

To add to the complete unreality of the situation, the government claims that its complete stuff up of the Haneef case, is a rationale for imposing even tougher anti terrorism laws, somehow claiming that the right to a magistrate to review any case is a fundamental injustice done to the nation as a whole. In the UK, which has the toughest anti-terror laws in the western world, the people charged have a whole month in confinement, a whole month where the press can only print the word of the governments and polices strategic leaks, then when the matter comes to court, the press is once again muzzled from printing anything. So in the Haneef case, under the UK laws, we would have had a whole month of nothing but the governments underground line, the sim card was found in the blazing truck, not several hundred miles away, the plot to blow up a gold coast highrise and a thousand other lurid lies slowly filtering out through the compliant press.

Howards defence and excuse now is to look at the AFP, saying, well they are independent of us, they are at arms length from the government, we have nothing to do with anything at all. Remember back to when AFP Cheerleader, Bill Kelty, said that the war in Iraq was possibly fueling resentment and terrorism, remember how quickly Howard jumped on the "independent" leader of the AFP. Within 24 hours the spineless government lackey Kelty had completely reversed his position and was forced to retract in a publicly humiliating fashion, everything he had spoken of the day before. But of course, he is utterly independent of the Howard government. There are so many issues at play regarding the blatant politicisation of the public service that only a change of government will bring the vile nature of the incumbents will suffice to add balance.

Its only been in the last few weeks that Dick Cheney has been forced to hand over any documents in relation to his 2001 energy commission task force. The situation was that the energy policy of the entire US was being written by the fossil fuel lobby at the behest of the VP in the first real display of Cheneys power in the US before 9/11. Cheney has fought tooth and nail not to reveal any details whatsoever about even who was at the meetings, keeping everything within the purview of executive privileged. Everything pointed to the modern equivalent of crony capitalism, the chief exec's of the major oil and fossil fuel industries directly writing their own legislation under the loving gaze of the their own bought and paid for president. It set the tone for the rest of the Bush administration, with the Iraq war possibly the first US crony capitalist proxy war of the modern era, just witness who makes the most profit from the invasion, all the old chums of the VP.

We see the same in our own country, the Gunns group in Tasmania, practically dictating the terms of their own legislation to ever so willing pollies, the Hugh Morgans et al, not even bothering to show any decency by waiting until the PM has a chance to announce their agenda in parliament, before registering companies of nuclear intent.

So do we trust this PM to do anything besides look after himself and his cronies, on any matter. Do we trust him to say or do anything, other than that which will play well in the polls? Do we trust the man not to spit in our faces, yet again and tell us its raining. The answers are in the polls, a resounding no.

When it comes to bullshit, the Bushies have no parallel:

Alberto Gonzales, testifying : "The dissent related to other intelligence activities," Gonzales testified at Tuesday's hearing. "The dissent was not about the terrorist surveillance program."

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, Thursday: the government's terrorist surveillance program was the topic of a 2004 hospital room dispute between top Bush administration officials.

Tony Snow, the bushies offical mouthpeice: "There is no contradiction in the testimony"

Background: House chief of staff Andy Card headed to a Washington hospital room, where a sedated Ashcroft was recovering from surgery. Ashcroft had already turned over his powers as attorney general to Comey. Comey was in the hospital room as well, and recounted to senators in his own sworn testimony in May that he "thought I just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man, who did not have the powers of the attorney general because they had been transferred to me." Ultimately, Ashcroft sided with Comey, and Gonzales and Card left the hospital after a five- to six-minute conversation. Gonzales denied that he and Card tried to pressure Ashcroft into approving the program over Comey's objections.

The simple rule is, if you say it aint so, it just aint so. The truth is always exactly what you want it to be. Watch out for major terrorism anouncement, made to order, to distract the viewers from the stench. Maybe the capture of a top tenner, or a foiled plot or just another "credible threat", that one always plays well to the news cycle.

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On Iraq: the US embassy, the biggest embassy in the entire world, is being bult by slave labour.

During testimony before the House Oversight Committee today, Rory Mayberry, a former subcontract employee of the firm responsible for the construction of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, said he believes that at least 52 Filipino nationals had been kidnapped to work on the embassy project. He testified:

Mr. Chairman, when the airplane took off and the captain announced that we were heading to Baghdad, all you-know-what broke out on the airplane. The men started shouting, it wasn’t until the security guy working for First Kuwaiti waved an MP5 in the air that the men settled down. They realized that they had no other choice but to go to Baghdad. Let me spell it out clearly: I believe these men were kidnapped by First Kuwaiti to work at the US Embassy… I’ve read the State Department Inspector General’s report on the construction of the embassy. Mr. Chairman, it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on. This is a cover-up and I’m glad that I’ve had the opportunity to set the record straight.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/26/slave-labor-used-to-contruct-us-embassy-in-baghdad/

just make it up as you go along

2007-07-20T10:34:00.000+10:00

Core and non core as hardcore bullshit flows from the silent one

"You talk about a whole lot of things when you're trying to convince people to do things," Mrs Howard says in the book. "But you don't go back and honour every single one of those unless you have made a firm commitment about it, and John wasn't into making firm commitments."

Even Janette knows what a lying peice of crap our PM is.

The signal for the death of the US economy? Or just another way stop on the long slow decline...

"The credit losses associated with subprime have come to light and they are fairly significant," Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee in a second day of testimony on the Fed's twice-yearly economic report. "Some estimates are in the order of between $US50 billion and $US100 billion of losses associated with subprime credit problems," he said, referring to a segment of the mortgage market that caters to borrowers with shaky credit.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/subprime-losses-could-hit-us100-billion/2007/07/20/1184560010480.html

In Iraq, Specialist Middleton said, "a lot of guys really supported that whole concept that, you know, if they don't speak English and they have darker skin, they're not as human as us, so we can do what we want."

What are we told about the withdrawl of troops from Iraq:

it will be a victory for the terrorists

it will be a victory for Al Queda

it will be a bloodbath, a massacre.

the government would collapse

there will be chaos.

so whats the difference?

does anyone believe the people who fucked up everything so badly in the first place, the people who did not get one single fact right. Follow the next two links to see the two sides of the same coin. Watch em and weep.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/07/19/inside-the-surge/

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/07/19/generation-chickenhawk-max-blumenthals-unofficial-college-republican-tour/

Ahh the NSW liberal right, always fun, always corrupt, always stranger than the fiction they push as truth. Will we get to see any links to secretive christian cults the NSW right just loves to coddle up to....

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22102696-11949,00.html

the 300

2007-07-17T12:40:00.000+10:00

giving your cousin a pre-paid SIM card that still had some credit 12 months ago, before leaving the UK- cost: getting arrested for terrorism

Giving $600,000 to a registered charity - cost: getting arrested for terrorism

Giving $300 million plus in bribes to a corrupt dictator, whom you claim to be a key al queda supporter, to buy weapons to attack your own troops - cost: get away scott free with over a million dollars in bonus's for the good work that you are doing.

priceless.

There's nothing rotten in the state of Denmark, its all fine and dandy, but there is something wrong with the state of Australian justice. Like so much of the Howard Governments recent attempts at governing, it all smacks of political expediency, cheap, nasty populism and absolute flailing incompetence.

In the Haneef case, the minister for immigration declares that no matter what the outcome of the courts, innocent or guilty, he will expell Haneef from the country on the basis of evidence which he cannot reveal on the grounds of national security, which Haneef cannot see, on the grounds of national security and which obviously can only be leaked to certain favourable media organisations, on the grounds of national security. He then goes on to explain something about the right of the charged to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Phil Ruddock, AG, doesn't wish to intrude, he just wants the court to address the charges, which according to Kevin have been rendered null and void in terms of his decisions.

Defending any charges of "terrorism" in this day and age is a bitch, public opinion is firmly against you from the start, you are guilty in the eyes of the populace just for being charged (see herald/sun polls for a good overview of stupidity in action). Most people will ignore the fact that a magistrate has seen all the "evidence" presented and made the decision to grant Haneef bail, setting it at a very low, for "terrorism", of $10,000, a good indicator of both the strength of the AFP case and lowly nature of the charge.

Lateline Tony Jones, asking some good questions to the rambling, very tired shell of incompetence, AG Phil Ruddock:

Boiled down, this is about a SIM card he gave to his cousin Sabeel Ahmed. The problem is that the British police have not charged Sabeel Ahmed with being part of a terrorist organisation. So how do the Australian police make a connection to a terrorist organisation when the British police do not?

Very briefly, how can you be charged with providing anything to a terrorist organisation when what you're being charged with is giving a SIM card to someone who in another country is not being charged with being part of a terrorist organisation?

Let me ask you this - what effect does that protected information, the secret information, have in law - because Dr Haneef and his lawyers are not entitled to see it and therefore it's very hard to defend yourself against it?

In this instance this information has been used, it appears, to take away a man's liberty, and yet here's the strangest thing of all. On page nine of this document assessing Dr Haneef's character, it says "if Dr Haneef continued to reside in Australia, he may make a positive contribution to the Australian community". How do you explain that statement?

None of these questions were answered in any way, shape or form of substance, Weary Phil, he of the monotone, quasi-legalese speak, merely wanted to point out that, in bringing terrorism cases to a magistrate, the judiciary was severely amiss in weighing up the evidence for what it was and granting bail.

"I will just say again that one of the matters we will be looking at is the question of the presumption against bail in terrorism matters."

So we have the immigration minister declaring that whatever a court decides, is completely irrelevant, and Australia's chief legal officer, stating that courts can't decide upon what they see and hear, they can only act in one manner, whatever the circumstances. Forget even the illusion of the presumption of innocence, we now have the one allegation and your out rule. Regardless of the strained quality of the hearsay, the paucity of evidence, the poverty of the charge, irrespective of the fact that the defendant may not, as a matter of national security, even see the case against him or her, you are guilty. Now Haneef, a man charged with the most piddling of unintentional terrorism offences, the sort of offence that I would characterise as charging a waiter with aiding a terrorist for bringing him a glass of water at a restaurant, will face several years in a detention centre awaiting a trial, which regardless of the outcome, he will be punished for, even if found completely innocent. To add to his misery, he will be charged by the day for the privilege of his own detention, something that he would not face if he were left languishing in jail.

Its not popular, but for shame.

Ruddocks last two departments, Immigration and Indigenous Affairs, have all ended with the minister taking over from him blaming him for the disastrous state of affairs within their portfolios, with numerous of the governments own reports using such glowing praise as "disastrous","dysfunctional", "a culture of incompetence" and so on and so forth, where ever the fool lays his hands. Both Tampa and the Children Overboard were Phils work, as were many of the 257 plus Australians locked up/detained for up to 6 years by the immigration department, so god knows what state the Australian legal system will be in when he is overwhelmed by his own bland spin of ineptitude and his successor pins all the departments overwhelming failures on his shoulders.

The Whitewash Papers (Cole Inquiry) handed down its findings in November of 2006, end result, not one single charge laid, not one. While Trevor Flugge, Andrew Lindberg and the lilly white boys and girls of AWB sadly get away with nothing more than their million dollar bonus's for funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to the man our PM describes as "worse than Hitler", we should ponder the nature of justice, in Howard's Australia, she is not only blind, but clearly venally stupid, as well as a politically motivated whore.

Meanwhile an Indian doctor pays us for each day he sits on Christmas Island....

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http://soundportraits.org/on-air/feature_documentaries/

yes, sound can be interesting and informative. Check out the section on executions, quite breathtaking.

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Blatant Hypocrisy of the day:

GW Bush

"We are showing the Palestinian people that a commitment to the peace leads to the generous support of the United States. These (Fatah Palestinian) leaders are striving to build the institutions of a modern democracy," said President Bush. "By following this path, Palestinians can reclaim their dignity and their future and establish a state of their own."