Government Expands "Black List" Of Banned Websites

Greenpeace Get Nervous

The Howard government has a "black list" of websites they have decided should not be viewed by any Australians. At least, not while they're in Australia. Some are porn sites, some are sites that supposedly disseminate terror propaganda, or information on how to build bombs or stage terror attacks.

But some of the sites on the government's "black list" are information sites related to terrorism and jihad, software "mashing" and peer to peer sharing.

Now the government has back-doored a new "web ban bill" described as a "bombshell" into to the Senate on the last day it sits before the federal election. No warning, no briefings. It was just suddenly there.

And the "black list" of web sites that are already blocked to all Australian users of the internet is about to grow much, much longer under the new "web ban bill".

More alleged terrorist and cyber-crime websites will be included.

But what is a terrorist or cyber-crime website under the new Howard government legislation? Nobody's sure. The wording is vague, and basically leaves it up to government ministers and the police to decide what information should disappear into the black hole of Australia's new wave of censorship.

Today, it's websites that demand violent retaliation for the slaughter of Muslims in Iraq. Tomorrow it might be a pro-conservation website explaining how locals can organize themselves into legal action groups and protest groups to stop a local forest from being chainsawed.

What few Australians now realise is that the Howard government's anti-terror legislation also includes vaguely-worded provisions stating that the disruption of a corporation's daily business practices could also be categorised as an act of terrorism.

In fact, a bunch of protesters don't have to actually chain themselves to a mining company's head office front doors to be acting like a bunch of terrorists. They merely have to have the intent, the plan, to do so.

Pre-crime in Australia is a growing reality.

From The Australian :

Australian Privacy Foundation chair Roger Clarke expressed disbelief that "the government of any country in the free world could table a Bill of this kind".

"Without warning, the Government, through Senator Coonan, is proposing to provide Federal Police with powers to censor the internet," Dr Clarke said.

"Even worse, ISPs throughout the country are to be the vehicle for censorship, by being required to block internet content."

Greens Senator Kerry Nettle said the Bill would give the Police Commissioner "enormous power over what political content Australians can look at" on the web.

"This gives the Commissioner sweeping powers which could potentially be applied to millions of websites," she said. "The Government has dropped the Bill into the Senate on the eve of an election with virtually no explanation."

Senator Nettle said environmental organisations such as Greenpeace had been accused of crime or terrorism-related actions. "Will the Police Commissioner call for Greenpeace's website to be shut down?"

Anti-terror legislation in Australia, the US, the EU and the UK was purposely crafted, and worded, to allow governments to decide that this action group or that dissenting protest organisation is actually conducting a form of terrorism, should any of these governments ever decide it is necessary to do so.

Non-government groups don't have to be conducting, or staging, terrorism against civilians to be regarded as terrorists. Merely planning protest actions against a corporation is also defined as an act of terrorism.

The Australian government, as part of its alleged fight against children being exposed to pornography or "shocking images" online, now offers free "content filters" through its NetAlert program. They sell it as a means to stop children from being exposed to pornography, but it's also about blocking "inappropriate material".

Once the software is installed, websites that the Howard government and the Police Commissioner decide should be locked out of Australian computer screens will be instantly blocked.

There are no set limits to what the Howard government or the Police Commissioner can determine is "inappropriate material."

The Howard government stealthily introduced the "web ban bill" to the Senate at the last possible moment because it didn't want the bill to come under intense scrutiny.

Not exactly a reassuring sign that their moves to ramp up censorship of the internet is being done in the best interest of the Australian people.

Australians Cracked, 'Stole' Top Secret American Military Aircraft Codes

One time defence minister, Kim Beazley, revealed today that back in the 1980s, Australian defence intelligence spied on the American air force to crack and "extract" top secret combat aircraft codes for use in the Hornet jet fighters the US had sold to Australia.

The Australian air force needed the codes to make full use of the Hornet's radar capabilities. But the Americans, paranoid as ever, refused to hand over the top secret information, despite years of requests from their closest world ally.

Beazley announced the stunning revelation, little known outside of Australian defence circles, during his final speech to the federal parliament before retiring.

"We spied on them and we extracted the codes," Mr Beazley (said).

Mr Beazley, who was defence minister from 1984 to 1990, said that when he took over the job he soon learned that the radar on Australia's Hornets could not identify most potentially hostile aircraft in the region.

In other words, Australia's frontline fighter could not shoot down enemies in the region.

"I went to the US and for five years, up hill and down dale, with one knock-down, drag-out after another, with Cap Weinberger, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, I tried to get the codes of that blasted radar out of them.

"In the end we spied on them and we extracted the codes ourselves and we got another radar that could identify (enemy planes)."

Beazley spoke of how difficult it was to deal with American government defence and Pentagon personnel, like Mr Cheney and Mr Wolfowitz :

"...they are a bunch of people you have to have a fight with every now and then to get what you actually need out of them," he said.

Mr Beazley also revealed that the Americans found out what the Australian intelligence agencies were doing and were "intrigued" by how much progress they had made in accessing and cracking the heavily encrypted codes.

Come on, what's a little spying and espionage between close allies every now and then?

Liberal Chief Of Staff : Australian Soldiers In Iraq Like Nazi Guards At Concentration Camp

As Liberal Party MPs, and their key staffers, try to deal with the reality that they are extremely likely to lose their seats, and their jobs, in the coming federal elections, the sheer desperateness of their position is showing itself in ever more vile and disgusting ways.

Peter Phelps, the chief of staff to a Liberal MP, attended a public forum where respected and distinguished Iraq War veteran Colonel Mike Kelly was speaking. Col. Kelly is running for the seat currently held by Phelps' boss in the coming federal election.

During the Q & A that followed Col. Kelly's speech, Liberal Party staffer Phelps grew angry as Col. Kelly refused to acknowledge his absurd claims that because Col. Kelly was a veteran of the Iraq War he was being hypocritical to hold the position that Australia should now withdraw its combat forces from the war zone.

Phelps is clearly so stupid, and ignorant, he doesn't comprehend that if you're already in the Australian Army when the federal government goes to war on another country, you do as you are ordered. Col. Kelly did the same as the many hundreds of other Australian soldiers who disagreed with the now vastly discredited case for War On Iraq put forward in early 2003 by prime minister John Howard, when Howard followed US President Bush into invading, occupying and allowing chaos to reign in Iraq.

Just because an Australian soldier didn't think the war was right, or necessary, didn't mean he or she had a choice about serving.

Col. Kelly refused to be baited by Phelps, who was told to shut up by other locals who wanted to ask Col. Kelly more relevant questions on local issues. Phelps kept going, seething with anger, and then asked Col. Kelly if his role in Iraq was like that of the Nazi guards at the Belsen concentration camp during World War 2.

Phelps has now apologized to Col. Kelly, but only after the despicable incident was raised in federal Parliament. In short, Phelps was shamed into apologizing, or forced to do so by his boss. Phelps insulted Col. Kelly, and every other veteran of the Iraq War, last week. He had more than five days to apologize. He refused to do so until today.

Despite his belated retraction, Phelps clearly believes what he said.

In a letter to Col. Kelly, Phelps referred to his comparison between Australian soldiers serving in Iraq, and Nazi guards at WW2 death camp, as "a partisan political point."

From AAP :

Col Kelly was keen to move past the row today but reiterated his pledge to run a clean and fair campaign.

"From the start of this, I made a commitment to play the ball and not the man, and focus on the issue," he said.

"I call upon all candidates to run a clean campaign and let's hope we can go that way from here."

Col. Kelly can have his dream of taking part in a clean election campaign, but furious, pathetic soldier-hating Liberals like Phelps will make sure that is one of the dirtiest campaigns ever seen. The Liberals are desperate, and scared, and their actions will become only more explosive, abhorrent and vile as the reality of their fate causes further panic.

Labor backbencher Michael Danby, the only Jewish MP in Parliament, described the comments as offensive not only to the Jewish community but to former and current Australian military personnel.

"I felt sick to my stomach sitting in federal parliament hearing some of these comparisons," Mr Danby said.

"Dr Phelps has attempted to equate an Australian who served in Iraq with someone who was a Nazi concentration camp guard at Belsen.

"This is deeply offensive not just to the Australian Jewish community but to all of our World War II diggers and airman who fought to defeat Nazism.

"It's also an astonishing attack on our servicemen in Iraq."

It's not the first time the Liberals have insulted Australian veterans. And it won't be the last.

Liberals like Phelps are following the example set by their leader, John Howard, who said the thousands of World War 2, Korea and Vietnam veterans who voiced their dissent against the War On Iraq, in early 2003, were giving "aid and comfort" to Saddam Hussein.

Around the same time, John Howard was busy doing all he could to supposedly ignore more than a dozen memos, letters and reports that flowed through his office warning him that the Australian Wheat Board was funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to the Saddam Hussein regime.

Liberals, like Phelps and Howard, don't care if they're being hypocrites, or spitting blood in the faces of Australian veterans with their crude and shameful insults. They only care about winning, nothing more.

"The Age Of Instant Everything Is Over"

The latest chapter from ED Day, the online serialized novel about life in Sydney after a bird flu pandemic, is now up.

Go Here For That

Here's an excerpt :

When I first saw her, sitting in the aisle, reading by sunlight, I asked her, ”Are you okay?”

She nodded, gave me that amazing smile. Her teeth were almost black. With chocolate.

I asked her, “What are you doing in here?”

She waved the novel at me, pointed at the neat pyramid stack of dark chocolate KitKats she was working her way through and said, “The good chocolate, the stuff with lots of cocoa, it boosts your immune system. Did you know that? And that keeps you safe from the flu.”

“Yeah, but won’t you get sick from eating all that chocolate?” I said.

She thought about this for a moment, laughed, and then showed me one of the wrappers. Her smooth, clear and shiny fingernail pointed to the Use By date.

“You see that?” Kat asked me. “In a few months this will be no good to eat. And now that the air-conditioning is gone, and we’ve got this weird combo of sun-rain, sun-rain nearly every other day, this stuff won’t even last that long. The rats will get into it all eventually.”

“Yeah,” I said, “so what? There's plenty to eat."

Kat shook her head slowly at me, ate some chocolate.

“Yes, but that’s it then, isn’t it?” she said, not noticing, like I had, that the chocolate was all over lips. “We’ll never have these again, chocolate bars like these, I mean. Nobody is going to be making these anymore. Right? Someone might be able to hand make them, but they won't taste the same. They won't even look the same. These perfect chocolate bars, the exact same measure of ingredients in every single one, all exactly the same size, flavour, smell, the bright wrappers…they’ll be gone soon."

She stopped to finish eating another Kit Kat and then continued : "It’s not just the people who died. This, all this kind of…production, it’s gone now, too. And in a few months, or less, you won’t be able to eat this stuff anymore. I mean, this is it. Then it's all gone forever."

Kat frowned at me, flicked through a couple of pages of her novel, then looked back at me.

"I’m not crazy, you know."

I knew then she was right. "You mean the mass production thing, don't you?"

She nodded quickly, "Exactly. This is it. The last of the last. Then no more."

"No more delivery trucks," I said.

"Delivery trucks? There aren't any more factories, or enough people to work in them," Kat said. "Everything from now on, for a few years at least, if not forever, will have to be made by hand. Chocolate, our meals, then our clothes. The age of fast food, instant everything, is over."

Go Here To Read ED Day From The Beginning

Howard Gives Rudd The Finger In Parliament


This photo by Gary Ramage appeared in today's edition of The Australian


As anyone who wears glasses will tell you, the only time you use your middle finger to "adjust your glasses" is when you're either missing your index finger, or when you want to send a non-verbal message.

Yesterday in federal parliament, of all places, prime minister John Howard showed just how petulant and immature he can really be, particularly when he's losing the election he refuses to call.

He gave Labor leader, Kevin Rudd, sitting opposite, the finger.


Howard and the Liberals have been polling so miserably for virtually all of 2007 that even when a new poll reveals they have "clawed back" ground, it is impossible to ignore the fact that they still won't win on these numbers.

They don't need to claw back ground, they need something close to a miracle.

Or something that will allow Howard to delay the elections until well into 2008.

BushCo. and NeoCon allies in France and Israel launching a War On Iran perhaps?

As we predicted here on the weekend, the latest Newspoll has shown a four point increase of support for coalition government, but Howard's rating remain virtually unchanged on a fortnight ago. We got that bit wrong. We were convinced that Howard would get some sympathy votes in the polls because he had been so thoroughly humiliated for a solid week.

Labor maintains a 10 point lead on the Howard government, but the poll shift saw Labor dropping four points and the coalition gaining four. Nothing hugely dramatic either way, but it could have been worse for the Howard government. They could have dropped from 18 points behind to 22.

Maybe the government got a rise because when the poll was taken on the weekend, Australians were convinced the Liberals were still going to toss Howard overboard?

Here's a round up of the latest Newspoll :

Labor still has a clear election-winning lead on a two-party-preferred basis of 55 per cent to the Coalition's 45, and Kevin Rudd is well clear of Mr Howard as preferred prime minister.

But an eight-point narrowing in Labor's primary vote lead during the APEC meeting, and despite the Liberal Party's devastating leadership instability, will boost Coalition morale at this morning's crucial party meeting in Canberra.

They'll need it.

More than half of Howard's senior cabinet couldn't muster messages of support for the prime minister when he needed it the most. The Australian public shows more respect and support for Howard than his own government ministers do.

Also, Workchoices doesn't stink any less this morning than it did last week, or last month, despite the raft of new ads showing 'ordinary' Australian workers having epiphanies about why giving up overtime and penalty rates is actually good for them. Or something.

Howard now has to come up with a reasonable excuse as to why he won't call the federal election now. Or at least in the next week.

The Labor Party will shred him over the reasons why he is delaying the election. And so they should. Howard has no reason other than his own interests to put off the inevitable. The three years is up, the election is due.

Unless, of course, Howard knows something is coming that the rest of us don't yet know about.

Would Howard use military action on Iran as an excuse to delay the federal election he is surely going to lose?

Do you really think he would not use such a horror, to cancel the election, if he was given the chance or the option to do so?

Of course he would.

Howard The Bitch

Tells Liberals 'You're Nothing Without Me'

Finding out that half of his cabinet couldn't be arsed to muster up a strong message of support during the APEC summit must have really got under the skin of John Howard. In fact, we know that it did.

He's none too subtly begun to point out that while the Liberal poll numbers are tanking, he's still doing pretty well, with most recent approval ratings hovering around 50%. It's not me they hate, Howard is telling his senior ministers, it's you bastards :

The Prime Minister said that if the party was as popular as him, the Government wouldn't be in trouble.

Mr Howard insisted he would go into the coming election as a team with Treasurer Peter Costello, but underlined his own attractiveness to voters.

"...my level of personal support is significantly higher than that of the party's," he told Melbourne radio. "If the party's level of support in the opinion polls was as high as mine is, it would be a different story.

"I'm not drawing any particular comfort from that. I'm just making the observation."

Expect more such 'observations' from Howard about his many deeply unpopular Liberal colleagues (yes you Tony Abbott and Alexander Downer) soft-peddling the line "You're a bunch of losers and I'm sick of winning elections for you wankers."


By the way, it should be becoming clear to Australian voters by now what the New Howard Style will be for the coming (official) election campaign : Peter Beattie with more pouting, and more earnest whining for "just one more chance to really prove myself".

Here's some lines that we expect Howard to start, or keep on, spouting over the next six to eight weeks :

"Well, yes, we were wrong on (insert humiliating scandal or dirty rotten lie)"

"I won't say 'I've Got A Dream', but I will say 'I Have A Vision For Australia's future."

"We could have handled (insert scandal, dirty rotten lie) a lot better than we did, and for that I apologize. I really do."

"I will be stepping down, but I will make sure that when I do, Australia is even a better place to live and work (emphasis work) than it is today. That is my vision."

"Most Australians already know that Australia has become the greatest country in the world (thanks to me), but before I go I want to make sure the rest of the world knows it, too."

"It's not about me, it's about our team, and the nation's future."

"I'm sorry...I apologize...I never meant to mislead anybody....I always had the nation's best interests at heart....I always had the national interest in mind when I made that decision."

"I do have regrets. But I've only ever wanted what's best for the country, and what's best for all Australians."

"I had to stay and fight this election, because our entire team is united in wanting all of Australia to know that they cannot afford to make a bad choice they will come to regret next year."

"I didn't mean 'Australians have never been better off' financially, I meant we've never been better off as a country."

Enough of that.

We'll finish up by tipping next week's Newspoll results.

Howard will stage something of a comeback, five or more points, with a slight drop off for Rudd. The Liberals will regain three or four points. Labor will stay about the same.

In some book about five years from now, we're going to find out that last week's tumultuous Liberal Party Leadership Melt-Down was not all that it appeared to be.

If Howard does gain some noticeable ground in the polls next week, it will be much harder for his traitors to toss him over the side, just as he planned, and it will prove that what happened was less scandalous and explosive than what we've been led to believe.

We figure Howard's wife, Janette, saw the signs of a coming betrayal from his colleagues and told him to cut it off before it gained steam by forcing them to make a move.

"I Want To See This City Come Back To Life Again"




Another chapter now online from the free-to-read serialized novel, ED Day, on life in Sydney after an apocalyptic bird flu pandemic.

An excerpt from ED Day - Chapter Five :

It’s night outside now. The towers of the city stand tall and dark, shiny black fingers against the deepening sky.

Why did you leave me behind? I want to go, too...

I didn’t believe much in God before ED Day. I don’t believe in God any more now. Hundreds of corpses of little kids scattered all over the city makes you realise fast that there probably isn’t someone who really gives a fuck about what happened to us, or what happens to us now.

I want to go, too.

But I don’t want to go. I did a few weeks back. I stood on the roof, toes over the edge, waiting for a wind, or a muscle spasm, so I didn’t have to decide. I thought about Kat, and how she'd feel when she found out I was gone.

I thought about all those babies that Kat and Matron looked after in the hospital, some of them still fighting for their lives.

I thought about that day, three days after ED Day, when I came down from my rooftop hideout and first met Bookman and Matron and Trader, walking the streets, calling out for other survivors. I thought about how happy I was to still be alive, and to find people like them, so happy to have found me.

And I thought our first barbecue in Hyde Park, when three dozen of us cooked the last of the steaks that were still edible (before we cracked the first tin of Spam), and drank warm champagne, and found a few minutes amongst all the death and misery when we actually forgot what had happened and we were just new friends, having a drink, and eating together. Sharing. Surviving.

I want to go, too...

I want to survive this. I want to live through it, and see what happens next. Tomorrow. Next month. Next year. Two decades from now.

I want to find out if Chrissie is still alive. I want to see the vegetable gardens and rooftop orchards grow big enough to feed all the survivors. I want to see a whole flock of sheep and lambs grazing on the slopes of the Domain and chickens and ducks getting fat for our future dinners in the Gardens and all the streets of our part of the city totally cleared of corpses.

I want to help these people as much as I can, because we all need each other now.

And I want a million more nights like this, when you can see every star in the sky, and you can see the flurry of movement of the owls and other birds making new homes in the apartments next door, where people had left balcony doors open before they died, or ran away, and when you can hear the soft, beautiful songs of the dolphins in the harbour, as they swim and play, coming back to waters their ancestors knew before any of us came down out of the trees.

I want to be here, I want to be a part of it. All of it.

I want to see this city come back to life again.

Go Here To Read Chapter One Of ED Day

Go Here For The Latest Chapter


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They're Coming For The Children

Children of drug-and-alcohol addicted parents would be adopted out, and addicted children under 18 forced into rehab, if extremist conservatives like Liberal MP Bronwyn Bishop had their way.

Wait, my mistake. Did I write alcohol addicted parents? Okay, that was wrong. Bishop only wants drug-addicted parents to have their children taken away from them.

From news.com.au :

Liberal MPs on a House of Representatives committee inquiry into illicit drug use have called for a hardline approach to drug policy, including dumping the Government's "harm minimisation policy".

Naturally. Everybody knows that the hardline approach to drug policies always work a charm. Look at how few drug addicts there are in the US, for example, where only tens of millions of people are hooked on pills, cocaine, heroin and ice.

The committee recommends adoption be established as the "default" care option for children aged five and under, where child protection authorities had identified illicit drug use by the parents.

It also recommends amending legislation to allow for children up to 18 years to be placed in mandatory treatment if they are addicted to illicit drugs.

Labor MPs on the committee, in a dissenting report, raised concerns about how the inquiry had been conducted.

Some witnesses had experienced "outright hostility because their expert views did not accord with the personal beliefs or political aims of those questioning them", they said.

Outright hostility from extremists like Bishop? Accused of letting her "personal beliefs or political aims" get in the way of accurately assessing expert opinion? Tell me it's not true. I refuse to believe that.

It should come as no surprise that alcohol abuse wasn't considered anywhere near as dangerous, by conservatives in this parliamentary committee, as all those evil illegal drugs.

So why the focus on only seizing the abused or neglected children of smack junkies or ice freaks? Because most of them are poor and can't afford lawyers to fight back. Rich junkies can afford nannies to make sure their babies' nappies aren't crawling with cockroaches, or that 3 year old Tanya isn't undernourished.

And also because there's only a few thousand families where children are placed directly in harm's way by the use of those drugs by their parents.

If you start talking about alcohol, then the abuse and neglect figures rocket up to hundreds of thousands of families. Tearing apart the culture of abuse spawned by alcohol would mean deconstructing and rewriting the entire fabric of Australian society, where white middle class families, per capita, utterly outrank those of poor Aboriginal families for loading up on booze and beating ten kinds of hell out of their kids.

There's a problem with drug-addicted parents mistreating their children, of course there is, but it's typical of conservatives like Bishop to only focus on the smallest sliver of a far bigger problem. Naturally, the conservative tabloid media and talk back radio will praise politicians like Bishop for taking a "tough stance" and a "zero tolerance" approach to illegal drugs, while filling advertising space flogging the drug of choice for child-beating, kid-abusing mums and dads - alcohol.

Hell, drinking half a case of beer and punching your eight year old son the entire length of the hallway is an Australian tradition. It's how you turn wimpy little boys into real men, apparently.

Why PM Refused To Quit - JanHow Didn't Want To Lose The Good Life

Much has been made, as it well should, of prime minister John Howard's years of claims that he would only stay in the top job of the Liberal Party as long as his party wanted him to stay, and as long as it was the best thing for his party.

Now we know that most of the senior ranks of the government wanted Howard to step down last week, for the good of the party, but he refused.

And now we know why. His wife, Janette Howard, didn't want to move out of Kirribilli House, where she has lived the very, very good life for more than ten years, all at the taxpayers' expense. And it's been very, very expensive. Millions worth of renovations, millions more for new furniture. Tens of millions of dollars spent hosting parties, cocktail parties, barbecues and get togethers. The wine bill alone runs into the thousands each and every month.

Of course John Howard denies point blank that his wife made him stay, so she could stay, but it's certainly no great secret that JanHow is the PM's top adviser, motivator and whip cracker.

Janette Howard overruled Cabinet ministers who wanted her husband to step down as Prime Minister.

Government sources yesterday said John Howard's wife was central to his decision to stay on to fight his Liberal Party critics, and the election.

"Mrs H is the key," a source said.

Last night Mr Howard denied his wife's advice was decisive.

"I think that's unfair to my wife, it's wrong," he told Nine's A Current Affair. However, there is a strongly held view within senior ranks of Government that her involvement was indeed pivotal.

Government sources said it was Mrs Howard who over Friday and Saturday helped convince him to stay on.

Murdoch Journalist Denies Murdoch Media Conspiracy

Andrew Bolt : 'We All Love A Good Conspiracy'

Murdoch Explains How He Uses His Media Empire To Change And Shape Public Opinion

Herald Sun columnist, and blogger, Andrew Bolt rails today against the growing tide of claims that Rupert Murdoch (Bolt's boss) instructed his Australian media empire to go after John Howard because he refused to step down. And that Murdoch gave the double thumbs-up to Labor leader Kevin Rudd earlier in the year, and ever since, Murdoch's sprawl of national, state and city newspapers have been backing Rudd, if not totally, then with a blinding enthusiasm once reserved for John Howard.

But there is no conspiracy, Andrew Bolt claims, all Murdoch columnists and journalists are free-thinking and independent. They can write whatever they like :

Murdoch columnists simply write what they really think, reacting to events that are obvious to anyone with eyes to see and the courage to report.

This theory that Murdoch orders his writers to speak his own mind is peddled by many of the usual suspects, from radical propagandist John Pilger to RMIT's journalism graduates.

But Bolt's claims that Murdoch never "orders his writers to speak his mind" comes completely undone when you look at the May speech by Rupert himself where he clearly lays out his plans to use his worldwide media empire to convince the public that climate change "poses a clear, catastrophic threat" and that he can change the beliefs of hundreds of millions of people.

Not only does Murdoch openly admit to his plans to use his newspapers, cable TV and movie-making empire to change peoples' minds about the threat posed by climate change, he says his media will pump his message directly to its readers and viewers.

All the below quotes from Murdoch's speech can be viewed in the context of how his vast Australian newspaper chain has reflected and precision-focused his desire to see Howard gone and Rudd installed in the prime minister's office :

"We need to reach them in a sustained way. To weave this issue into our content-- make it dramatic, make it vivid, even sometimes make it fun. We want to inspire people to change their behavior.

"The challenge is to revolutionize the message.

"We need to do what our company does best: make this issue exciting. Tell the story in a new way.

"Now... there are limits to how far we can push this issue in our content.

"...we can change the way the public thinks about these issues..."

That's exactly what Sydney's Daily Telegraph in particular has been doing. Changing the public mind on how they view John Howard, not necessarily how they view Kevin Rudd. Of course there will be the throwaway columnists hammering Rudd, but that's not where the true influence and change induced by a concentrated media campaign matters the most.

The vast majority of newspaper readers take in the headline and the photograph of the newspapers they buy, and then they might read the intro. Maybe. Most newspapers go unread by their readers. They glance at photographs and headlines and the first few paragraphs. And in Murdoch's daily tabloids, the use of headlines and photographs have consistently, and quite obviously, torn apart and aimed to discredit the once impenetrable image of John Howard they've carefully built up, stone by stone, over the past decade.

Ever since Murdoch's May speech marking climate change as a key issue for promotion through his media empire, Andrew Bolt has quieted his criticism and once hysterical attacks on those who promote the fight against global warming. Sure, he'll still flog Tim Flannery and Al Gore with a wet lilly, but he's pulled back from branding all believers in global warming as being mentally defective and believers of "the most superstitious pagan faith of all".

We go through how Murdoch betrayed Andrew Bolt on global warming in The Changing Climate Of Andrew Bolt here.

In the news.com.au intro to Bolt's 'No Conspiracy Conspiracy' piece, this is written :

We all love a good conspiracy theory, but anyone who thinks opinion writers are told what to write by Murdoch is delusional.

But anyone who thinks an established and highly paid Murdoch opinionst, particularly one as compromised as Bolt, is going to even touch on the truth about about Murdoch's 'hands-off but guiding hand' approach to the editorial content of his newspapers is probably delusional enough to believe what Bolt is writing.

What isn't delusional is that moderators are heavily censoring comments to Bolt's piece, dismissing any Murdoch conspiracy. And the censorship is going down at both the news.com.au front page and on Bolt's blog. Both avenues of comment have been open all day and only attracted a measly 28 comments, combined, by 1pm.

There may well be a conspiracy, but don't expect Andrew Bolt to be your Oliver Stone.


Murdoch Journalists Warns Howard Government About Negative Column Before She Even Finishes Writing It

The Changing Climate Of Andrew Bolt

Andrew Bolt Admits Defeat On Global Warming : "I've Done My Dash"

Back In The Gutter Where He Belongs

Howard-Hugging Columnist Warned Prime Minister Of Her 'Time To Go' Op-Ed Before She Even Finished Writing It

By Darryl Mason

A columnist for The Australian newspaper - the supposedly "balanced" and "not biased at all" flagship of the Australian Murdoch media empire - has been outed as not only a rabid supporter of prime minister John Howard, but also one that lets the prime minister know, days in advance, when she is writing an op-ed that may reflect badly on him.

Who's doing what now?

Yes. Janet Albrechtsen, a columnist for The Australian, rang John Howard's office before she had even written her column about why it was time for him to step down, to let him know what she was planning to write.

She called other ministers as well, allowing them the opportunity to try and talk her out of writing the 'Howard Must Go' column that supposedly "rocked the Howard government" when it appeared in The Australian on September 7.

How do we know all this? Because it's right there in the pages of The Australian newspaper today :

Albrechtsen is an unashamed and long-term Howard supporter who decided to write a special column for Friday's newspaper urging Howard to go.

On Wednesday and Thursday the columnist - a strong supporter of Turnbull, and whose husband, John O'Sullivan, campaigns for the Environment Minister in his Sydney electorate of Wentworth - told Turnbull, as well as Tony Abbott, Nick Minchin and Downer, of her plans.

She also told the Prime Minister's office. She said yesterday she talked to the ministers "as a courtesy".

Turnbull says he urged her not to write it, as did Abbott and Howard's office.

Any sliver of credibility that Janet Albrechtsen may have had is now completely gone.

She's not an independent columnist, with scant regard for the impact of her opinion, as a truly fearless and uncompromising columnist must be. She is a propaganda outlet for John Howard, and has been a key player in the current game of "Howard Must Quit"/"Howard Must Stay" that has dominated political media coverage for the past eight days. The Game that is meant to show just how tough and resilient Howard can be, and how ready he is for the Big Fight in the coming election. And it all took place just when Howard needed it the most, when he is absolutely tanking in the polls.

You can see it all for yourself in Albrechtsen's original 'Howard Must Go' column, that was supposed to have earthquaked the Howard government. We know now it did nothing of the sort. They all knew it was coming. Not only did they know it was coming, they knew what the column was going to be about before she had even finished writing it.

In the column, Albrechtsen first devotes hundreds of words to reminding readers just how brilliant a prime minister John Howard has been, and how we'd all be eating dirt and back on chain gangs cracking sandstone slabs if he hadn't graced us with his leadership.

She immediately follows all this with one of the most gag-inducing paragraphs I've seen in any newspaper all year :

Under Howard it became cool to be a conservative. He rebuilt a political philosophy of individual responsibility for a new generation. His legacy is profound...

Bring me another bucket.

When she supposedly unleashed on Howard, it was with a feather :

But now he must go. The Howard factor is there. Where once it meant success, now it presages defeat.

Hmm, tell us something we don't know, Janet.

Do you ever get the feeling that you're being conned?


Of course, Albrechtsen's column came at a very opportune time for The Australian newspaper as well.

Murdoch's national broadsheet is widely mocked and ridiculed across the Australian media, the public and within political circles for being the 'Government Gazette'. There was a joke that went around last year for a few days : Why don't you ever see John Howard reading The Australian newspaper? Because he already knows what it will say about him.

Albrechtsen has proved the joke is actually reality.

Her column advising Howard to pack it in and hand over the leadership to Peter Costello was seen as proof that The Australian was not staffed by Howard-huggers and federal government propagandists.

And the timing was perfect. On the brink of an election, when The Australian most surely needs to regain its credibility and give the appearance of being unbiased, up pops Albrechtsen, the "unashamed...long-time Howard supporter", demanding he step aside. Well, not demanding. Suggesting he step aside would be more accurate.

But of course, we know now Albrechtsen didn't just write and publish this column, one of the few she's ever written that even dared to slightly criticise Howard. She actually got on the blower
and called the PM's office, before the column was published, to let Howard know what was coming. She called other ministers and gave them the opportunity to talk her out of it, or perhaps more importantly, convince her to tone it down.

Why would she do this?

Why would a columnist for a newspaper even contemplate doing such a thing, let alone making the calls?

Remember, Albrechtsen said herself in The Australian newspaper today that she called the prime minister, and at least two other Howard government ministers, "as a courtesy."

That is, she called to give them notice and to allow them all to fully prepare for the negative fallout that they knew would surely follow the column's appearance in The Australian, to craft their answers and reactions to media questions days in advance.

Albrechtsen didn't voice her opinion, boldly, honestly, and without regard for who may be offended by her thoughts, she actually tipped off the key players in the Howard government, and Howard himself, before she 'dared' to say it was time for him to go. Before she even typed the words.

Incredible.

Just remember what Janet did every time you see her column, or any column, in The Australian that is allegedly critical of the Howard government, or any of its key ministers.

You may well begin to wonder, as you probably should if Albrechtsen is any example to go by, 'Did they tell Howard what they were writing about?' 'Did they warn Alexander Downer they were going to criticise him today?' 'Did Howard government ministers try and talk this columnist out of writing this piece?' 'Was this column different before the columnist discussed what he/she had written with some Howard government minister?'

Janet Albrechtsen is utterly compromised, even when she is critical of John Howard, because she dwells in a compromised world where she cannot write nor say what she wants, when she wants, and to hell with the consequences.

So why does she get column space in the newspaper, and prominent positioning on The Australian's website?

Well, why do you think?


Shock! Murdoch Journalist Denies Murdoch Media Conspiracy

Murdoch Conservatives Cut Off Howard's Head - Albretchsen And Bolt Lead The Chant : "Howard Must Go"

Prime Minister Declares Police Tactics Of Intimidation And 'Brutalisation' Of Sydney Protesters "Worked Brilliantly"

State Premier Declares "Mission Accomplished"



By Darryl Mason

As far as prime minister John Howard is concerned, the use of more than 2000 police officers, police dogs, snipers, the deployment of the full riot squad and a water cannon circling anti-Iraq War protesters in Sydney on Saturday "worked brilliantly."

So happy was the NSW state premier, Morris Iemma, with the police violence against peaceful protesters that he directly echoed President Bush's infamous May, 2003, declaration on the Iraq War by stating, "Mission Accomplished."

A video published on YouTube reveals that police ID tags did not fall off in scuffles, as senior police are now claiming, but were removed on purpose, according to one police officer :

"It's one of the policies the bosses have this week".

The fact that "no windows were broken" during the protest shows the police tactics were successful, said premier Morris Iemma.

The "forward action" taken by police, a strategy long planned to be used against protesters, was "the right decision" and "it worked brilliantly, it really did."

A former police officer has been quoted as saying on-duty police had no excuse to remove their ID badges, which are normally attached by velcro :

"They're saying they don't want anyone to know who they are, then they are demanding that the average citizen produce identification."

International tourism is one of Australia's biggest industries, generating billions of dollars. That source of revenue, and jobs, may now be under threat from the 'police state' display of security during the APEC summit, as tourism experts fear Sydney's international image has been damaged :

The managing director of the Tourism and Transport Forum, Christopher Brown, said authorities failed to strike the right balance when given a promotional opportunity akin to hosting the Olympics.

"Empty streets with concrete barriers, high fences and riot squad officers, snipers in buildings and helicopters," Mr Brown told ABC Radio. "We just got out of control … we just didn't get the balance right between the imagery and security."

A senator for the Green Party wants an independent inquiry to be held to investigate the tactics and full force display of intimidation used by police. The senator said she was concerned that 'police pointed guns at protesters and people were subject to video surveillance.'

We eyewitnessed more than three dozen police using video cameras to image protesters. Police are now allowed by law to database the faces of every single one of the more than 6000 people, including children, who marched peacefully through the streets of Sydney last Saturday.

Canada's NeoCon-In-Chief Warns Australians On Voting John Howard Out Of Office

NeoCons just can't stop themselves from interfering in foreign elections.

Today, Canada's prime minister, Steven Harper, saw fit to blatantly warn Australians against daring to vote John Howard out of office. There will be repercussions, he said, and then played the terror card for all its worth :

Mr Harper, who regards Mr Howard as a political mentor for the new generation of conservative leaders around the world, warned voters against taking the strong economy for granted.

"It's more difficult than ever to make the right and sometimes very difficult policy choices. Because the wrong choices could unravel our progress and prosperity more quickly than many people would care to believe," he said.

Mr Harper said the two countries had become like strategic cousins.

Mr Harper said September 11, 2001 shook the world and six years on, horrific images from that morning still evoke anger, sorrow, and as intended terror.

"The buildings may have been American, but the targets were every one of us," Mr Harper said.

He said terror has struck again and again, in London, Madrid, India and many other places, including Bali.

"Both of our countries have been bloodied by terror and both of us are doing our part to confront and defeat it."

Prime ministers and presidents interfering in the elections of other countries, however subtly, is widely regarded in diplomatic circles as downright nasty and wrong. You simply don't do it.

But the NeoCons couldn't care less. They will do anything, and everything, to save the skin of a compatriot, particularly now when the people of the US, Australia, Canada, the UK and Europe have well and truly woken up to their poisonous agenda of fear-mongering and seeking political capital from the misery and destruction wrought by terrorism.

Don't Laugh, Live In Fear

Gerard Henderson shows what being a po-faced, humourless, pro-fear, auto-bot is all about with this absurdly miserable take on The Chaser's now worldwide famous jape at the APEC summit last week.

Gerard can barely conceal his outrage : How dare these 'comedians' make fun of terrorism by trying to drive a fake Osama Bin Laden up to President Bush's hotel!

Would relatives of Osama's victims find this "dangerous" stunt amusing, asks Gerard.

Yeah, some of them. Some probably thought it was absolutely hysterical. That's the beauty of humor and humans. You never know what is going to make someone shriek in delight and laugh until they cough. And Australians have one of the darkest, and most morbid, and most well-rounded sense of humour in the world.

But don't let all that stop Gerard. He's wired on his fury at such petulance from "taxpayer subsidised" comedians like The Chaser.

Gerard demands everyone stop laughing right now and instead cower in fear at the wrath of Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden :

In Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, terrorism - and the threat of terrorism - is no joke.

And then there is Australia - where the threat of terrorism is a
(taxpayer-subsidised) joke. The Chaser's stunt, whereby the comedians breached security put in place for the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum in Sydney by posing as the Canadian motorcade, received international media coverage. The image of Chas Licciardello, dressed as the al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, was featured in the print and electronic media on Friday.

Soon after bin Laden's latest video message was released. In it, posing with a newly dyed beard, bin Laden praised the Islamists who attacked the US on September 11, 2001, and called on Americans to "embrace Islam". Needless to say, no one regarded the real (bin Laden) thing as funny. Certainly not in Algeria, Britain, Morocco, Spain or the US, where al-Qaeda, or its affiliates, have been into mass murder in recent years.

Actually, plenty of people thought that new Bin Laden video was funny. Millions of people all over the world in fact. They thought it was funny, stupid, ridiculous and yet another sign of just what a complete dickhead and hopeless joke Bin Laden really is.

Seriously, who saw that new Bin Laden video, or read the transcript, and thought anything else but 'This beard-dyeing freak is telling me what to think and what to believe? Get f..ked, wanker.'

Those who happily mocked the new Bin Laden video included American senators, terror experts and commenters to news blogs and websites all over the world, including people in Britain, Spain and the United States.

But paranoid old Gerard detects an evil Leftoid conspiracy :

...The Chaser has moved to embrace fashionable leftist causes - the latest manifestation of which is that terrorism is not all that serious a problem and that, consequently, national security is not all that important.

Members of The Chaser, when asked by the media to comment on their stunt, said in so many words, "Lucky it was us and not Al Qaeda."

Damn right.

Gerard wants his readers to think that those connected with APEC security didn't find The Chaser's gag funny in the slightest. Rubbish. Police who arrested The Chaser can clearly be seen laughing with 'Bin Laden', and American secret service agents, jogging through the Botanical Gardens the next day, were heard howling with laughter over what "those Auzzies" had tried to pull off.

The Chaser's easy cruise through two levels of checkpoints also sparked an immediate and obviously greatly needed review of APEC security, making President Bush and the other world leaders even safer than they were before.

The real reason for Gerard's seething disgust at The Chaser team becomes obvious two-thirds of the way down his column. Turns out Gerard Henderson himself has been 'punked' by these "taxpayer subsidised" comedians :

...the troupe had unlawfully gatecrashed a booked-out Sydney Institute function (Gerard Henderson's Sydney Institute) and trespassed on private property. I was subsequently informed in writing...that such stunts were approved by the ABC and to expect more of the same.

No one can trespass on ABC property in, say, Sydney or Perth. But the ABC management reckons it's OK for The Chaser to trespass on the property of others.

Heartbreaking stuff.

Some years ago, The Chaser sought to make fun out of the victims of the Soham murders in Britain - as if the sexual assault and killing of pre-teenage girls is a suitable subject for humour.

This year Morrow and his colleagues thought it appropriate to turn the genocidal Nazi regime into a joke. And now we are told that we should all laugh at Licciardello frocked-up as the terrorist bin Laden. Tell that to the Germans and the Algerians.

Yeah, and how many comedians and film-makers have built entire careers off making fun of the Nazis? Hundreds? Thousands? Has Gerard never heard of one of the world's most successful musicals The Producers by any chance?

By Gerard's reckoning, any terror group or fucked-up slaughter outfit should not be subjected to mockery or ridicule because the victims, or the victims relatives, might find it offensive, or the danger and fear generated by such terrorists might somehow be lessened.

Tell that to the Australian Prisoners Of War who made fun of their World War 2 Japanese torturers through plays and musicals, right to their faces, even when they knew it would result in savage beatings.

Tell that to the British PoWs who relentlessly mocked their German captors during WW2 and then came home and created vastly successful television series and movies based on their experiences.

Tell that to the victims of 9/11 and the July 7 bombings in London who used humour and mockery to help them deal with their pain, their loss and the PTSD that threatened to cripple their lives.

Tell that to every victim of terror, abuse or crime who have managed to recover enough of their old self to not only laugh at their predicament, but to find relief in their ability to do so.

The Gerard Henderson mantra that terrorists like Bin Laden should not be made fun of because it could lessen the seriousness with which people view the threat of Al Qaeda is downright insulting to everyone who laughed at what The Chaser pulled off.

Who does he think he is to tell us what we should and should not find funny?

And as far as The Chaser being "taxpayer-subsidised" - yes, it's true, but the show is clearly a low-budget effort, and their DVDs have already sold by the hundreds of thousands, generating massive profits for the ABC. Plus their weekly show, and its repeats, pull more than 1.5 million viewers. The Chaser is one of the top five most watched programs on Australian television.

Clearly many, many Australians think they are getting value for money from the "taxpayer subsidised" show. The same cannot be said for the Howard government's insipid, endless advertising and propaganda campaigns, which have chewed up more than $2.2 billion of "fully taxpayer funded" air time over the past ten years.

The Chaser provided an invaluable and important release for Sydneysiders during APEC, after more than a solid month of dire warnings from politicians, police and the media about the
"violence" that was set to engulf the city.

They let us laugh at all that security and police state hardware and the snipers in helicopters hovering over our city and the steel cage surrounding the Opera House and entire streets in the heart of Sydney.

It was the first, and only, big laugh most Australians got out of the entire "taxpayer funded" APEC summit, which cost more than $400 million.

The Chaser's impressively successful joke at the absurdity of all the, however necessary, security gave millions of Australians exactly what they needed most : relief from all that fear-mongering. The very same sort of fear-mongering that Gerard Henderson has used to build himself a very profitable business.

But don't you dare laugh. You might upset Osama Bin Laden.

The Chaser's APEC Security Video Can Be Viewed Here

Peaceful Sydney Anti-Bush, Anti-Iraq Protest Shattered By Police Violence : "That's The Way We Do Business Now"

Police Removed Mandatory ID Badges Before Unleashing On Protesters

Media Assaulted & Arrested, Women Shoved And Knocked Down, Hundreds Of Undercover Police Infiltrated The Crowd


Hundreds of uniformed police removed their ID tags before the arrests and violence began


UPDATE : Prime Minister John Howard has declared that the police tactics of violence and intimidation used against thousands of peaceful protesters "worked brilliantly, they really did."
Go here for the full story.

They came in their thousands, in defiance of a month long fear and intimidation campaign by the state and federal governments, the police and the Murdoch media.

Of the more than 6000-8000 who marched, all but a few dozen protested peacefully, without violence or aggression. More than half of all protesters were women, hundreds of elderly people marched, joined by hundreds of families, with young children.

But the 2500 police deployed, backed by a full riot squad, a water cannon, backpacks full of pepper spray, dogs and snipers in a helicopter hovering above the crowd, were pumped for the long promised "worst riots ever seen in Sydney." A promise made only by the police and state government ministers over the past few weeks.

Protesters were wrestled to the ground, put in headlocks, had their arms twisted up behind their backs, had knees rammed into their spines and, in a number of assaults by police, were punched in the back and neck with a flurry of hard blows while being held down. Few of those assaulted and beaten displayed any resistance at all.

Dozens were removed from the Sydney protest on Saturday for taking photographs or video of police, dozens more were shoved, thrown to the ground and generally provoked. But still the crowd did not erupt into the expected mass violence and disordert.

An accountant, who crossed the street in the wrong place, was slammed onto the footpath and had his face rammed into the ground by at least six police officers. His young son stood nearby, clearly trembling in fear, as police wrestled the man who offered up no resistance, except to protect his glasses. He was held in a police cell for 22 hours and was denied contact with his lawyer and family members. Police didn't return his glasses until after he was released from custody.

But for all the violence unleashed on the protesters, only a few were arrested, and less than 10 face any charges at all. Two of the charges related to nudity. Some were detained for swearing, others were dragged away by police because they dared to question why someone else was being dragged away. Some were charged with resisting arrest. You could be arrested for resisting arrest by simply asking "why are you detaining me?"

The media came under attack from the police as well. Photographers and videographers were assaulted, detained and in some cases arrested.

The vast majority of the violent incidents mentioned above were captured on video.

Of the actions of police, the new Chief Commissioner, Andrew Scipione is reported as saying the tactics were well practised and cleared defined :

"That's the way that we do business in NSW now."

The majority of police officers involved in all the violent incidents listed above had removed their mandatory identification badges before they unleashed on the vastly peaceful protesters who gathered in Sydney on Saturday to voice their dissent against the Iraq War and the presence of President Bush in their city.

Hundreds of police were captured on video with no visible identification.

The Police Service manual advises all uniformed police officers to follow the law and display identification at all times.

Hundreds of police and detectives disguised themselves as as protesters and infiltrated the huge crowd.

When a protester in Hyde Park moved as though he was acting to set fire to a small American flag, six to eight undercover police or detectives swooped on him and dragged him away.

One eyewitness claimed that one of those who took part in the arrest of the potential flag burner had earlier been seen throwing small objects from within the crowd and had been chastised by protesters. At least one protester was reported in the media to have been dragged away by police for throwing objects. The eyewitness refused to give their name, and said he was fearful of repercussions from police.

The issue of police not wearing ID on their uniforms will be investigated internally.


Prime Minister Declares Police Tactics Of Violence And Intimidation Used Against Peaceful Protesters "Worked Brilliantly" - State Premier Declares "Mission Accomplished"

Sydney To Stay Under 'Martial Law' Until September 12

Sydney's Promised "Violent Riot" Protest Descends Into Shocking Peace


An eight year old waves at the massed ranks of the riot squad, many of whom ended up laughing at the stupidity of being deployed in total readiness mode, when there was clearly no trouble to be found, or any violence that needed to be dealt with.


Thousands of people marched through the streets of Sydney today, and nobody died. No buildings were stormed, no shops were smashed up and no police cars were burned.

So many of the hundreds of journalists and photographers who turned up to witness the "scenes of carnage", including Channel Nine's Mike Munro, seemed so very, very disappointed that the peaceful protest ended up being so...peaceful.

Aside from those arrested for swearing, and nudity, and the one idiot who attacked two police officers, the much promoted "anarchy in the streets of Sydney" was a case of wishful thinking for the anti-protest freedom haters of Australian politics and the mainstream media.

After weeks of nervous politician, police and pundits howling about the horrors and spectacular violence that could only follow when Sydneysiders dared to stage a march in the streets of their city at the same time world leaders were meeting at the APEC summit, the protest went off with only a handful of arrests, many of them for minor infractions.

There was easily 10,000 people, far more than the standard police estimate that always slashes the true figure of protest turnouts by two-thirds.

There were about a dozen face-masked anarchists ready to give police a reason to crack heads, and unleash the bone breaking debut of the absurdly expensive water cannon truck, but the NeoNazi anarchists were quickly surrounded and held in place by a number of protesters calling themselves "peace police."

We'll have a special report, with plenty of photos, on the confrontation between anarchists and peaceful protesters tomorrow.

There were hardly any ferals or crusty dread-head Lefties to be seen at the protest, shattering the pathetic cliches spouted by some Murdoch journalists that such protests are only ever populated by minorities. Lefty, feral minorities.

The 10,000 who marched today came from all walks of Australian life and were united in their opposition to the Iraq War, to rich nations refusing to fight climate change and to workers rights being stripped away under the Howard government's workplace 'revolution'.

There were thousands of protesters aged 45 years or older. Hundreds of families, many with young children, came along, defying police warnings to stay away because "your safety cannot be guaranteed.

There were die-hard unionists and angry conservative Liberals from Sydney's north shore, who one voted for John Howard, and now want nothing more than for him to be gone from their lives. There were students and teachers and lawyers and labourers and taxi drivers and bus drivers and plumbers and carpenters and hookers and small business owners and council workers and delighted tourists, who all joined together for a party in Hyde Park following the virtually incident-free protest.

Cafes and shops in the city centre that have suffered crippling 50-80% down turns in business thanks to APEC ended up having a boom day, and many were very happy that the protesters were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on food and drinks while they were in the city today.

Many protesters joked and laughed with police, who were bored out of their minds standing around with nothing to do for four or five hours. Police posed for pictures with tourists and children and explained their new riot gear to the curious.

The disappointment shown by most even television news reports that the protests didn't match up to the overblown predictions of police spokesmen, the NSW premier, the prime minister and a fleet of mostly Murdoch media opinionists was glaring, and obscene.

Those Who Leave Don't Come Back

Chapter Four of the online novel ED Day is now up. Some 'light' fiction for your weekend reading.

This is a novel writing experiment, that's already proved to be both exciting, and terrifying.

ED Day is a serialised novel, where readers can comment and critique the story as it's being written. Most of the comments have been kind and encouraging, so far.

Three or four chapters will be published each week online, free to read, until the tale is told.

ED Day is the story of how a few hundred people survive and build a new society in Sydney, after an apocalyptic bird flu pandemic strikes and kills millions. Most of the people are gone, but much of the city remains undamaged. Supermarkets are full of food, but the streets are littered with corpses. The survivors are now learning that they can't leave the city. At least, not alive.

Here's an excerpt from the latest chapter :

I never really worked out whether the government was lying to us, or whether they didn’t know what was happening, or just how bad the pandemic really was.

The more people who got sick, the less people there were to keep the power stations and the rest of the infrastructure running. There were blackouts and dry taps every two or three days. You got used to it.

The prime minister and the health minister were on the news all the time, but never live on air. People reckoned they were already out of the country, and that most of what they said had been pre-recorded.

In the first week of March, a lot of senior government ministers pissed off to islands up north for “conferences”, taking their families with them.

Some of the survivors here reckon the government knew what was coming, but they didn’t want us to survive. Something to do with a worldwide depopulation program that Prince Philip and Henry Kissinger have been talking about for decades.

The government ministers, say some survivors, saved themselves and their families and friends, by hogging anti-virals and leaving the mainland, and left the rest of us here to die. Bookman seems pretty convinced that's what happened. The more he talks about that version of what happened to us, the more survivors believe it.

When we think back the chaos and confusion in February and early March, it’s easy enough to believe such things might have been true. This is the sort of stuff people end up talking about when there’s no nightly news or newspapers anymore, and no television or radio shows. It’s like we have to make up our own news.

Here’s one of the most popular theories on what happened before ED Day that some of the survivors talk about, a lot :

Those in the government that didn’t leave before March 21 (the day when nearly everyone who stayed in the city ended up dying) isolated themselves away, beneath the city.

Somewhere under the city, some of the survivors reckon, there are all these halls and bunkers and vaults, dating back from World War 2. They were expanded as nuclear bunkers during the 1950s and 1960s, and refurbished during the massive building projects that swamped Sydney in 2008.

Down there, goes the theories, there is a big network of rooms and kitchens and sleeping quarters, with air filters and warehouses full of food and water and medicine. Enough to last a year or more.

That’s where some of the state government ministers, senior public servants, and their families, are supposed to be hiding out right now.

If you go into the basements of the State Parliament on Macqaurie Street and put your ear to the wall, you can sometimes hear something that sounds like the whir of air-conditioning. Or it could just be wind blowing through ducting.

“They’re still down there,” this one guy yelled at a Town Hall meeting last week, “they’re down there right now, waiting for the all clear.”

Go Here To Read Chapter One

Howard, Downer Ban Media So Embarrassing Questions Are Not Asked

Prime minister John Howard and foreign minister Alexander Downer will waffle until your ears fall off about the terrible repression of media in 'regime' countries like Russia and Iran.

But they don't mind engaging in a bit of media banning and compiling a few 'blacklists' themselves, particularly if troublesome journalists trying to ask Australia's APEC guest some hard and important questions might end up queering natural gas deals worth more than $40 billion dollars :

The Australian Government has secretly blacklisted a host of Chinese media organisations and journalists from official APEC functions in an effort to avoid exposing Chinese President Hu Jintao and other dignitaries to embarrassing questions.

APEC officials have drawn up a list of Australian Chinese media that have not been permitted to register for APEC, including at least one respectable newspaper with links to the NSW Government and a journalist who had already been given accreditatio

When Iran and Russia ban media and compile blacklists, they're being totalitarian. When Australia does it, well, we're just being polite to our cashed-up guests.

Howard's Democracy - it's kinda like communism, but with lots more capitalism.

White House On The Chaser's Breaching Of Bush Security - 'We Are Not Amused'

While this story provides only the scantest of detail about the White House reaction to The Chaser's major breach of Australian police and American secret service security around President Bush's hotel, a Washington friend e-mailed to say that "the talk" over there in the corridors and coffee shops wasn't about whether or not the prank was funny, but was all about how in the hell Bush's SS team could have screwed up so monumentally.

When it comes to the president's security detail, "blaming the locals" just doesn't cut it.

The main and most obvious concern about the security breach being, "What if it wasn't a few cars full of comedians? What if it was three cars full of fertilizer, ammonia and a half a ton of nails and bolts?"

Here's the only comment so far from the White House :

Talk to the secret service.

Uh oh.

Here's White House spokesperson Dana Perino on the ultra-security caging Sydney :

“It’s unfortunate that security climates were as such, but, as soon as we get out of town, then Sydney will return to normal, hopefully,” Perino said.

Hopefully?


The Chaser have now joined the growing blacklist of media persons and organisations distributed by the Howard government to police and security personnel.

Conservatives Cut Off Howard's Head

The Chant Begins, You Must Quit

The Bus Of Doom Is Coming For Howard

Nobody likes a loser. Well, some people do.

But not Australian conservatives and neocons (C & Ns). They hate losers and underperformers. It doesn't matter if they can't win a battle, they just don't want to lose completely, comprehensively, and suffer total humiliation.

And with John Howard still planning to lead the Liberal Party into a federal election that is likely to destroy them as a political entity of any great standing for perhaps an entire generation to come, the C & Ns - conservatives and neocons - are rallying their ranks across the media to turn up the heat on Howard to step aside. Before they make him.

For the C & Ns, who have successfully and comprehensively poisoned the Australian national character bedrock of a"Fair Go For All", the moment you stop delivering the goods, providing the payoffs and making them look successful, it's over. You're over.

They want you gone. Not tomorrow. Today. Yesterday. What the fuck are you still doing here, mate? We said "Get Lost!"

Today, John Howard is facing an impossible to ignore chorus of wailing and whining from the once-faithful and worshipful - Quit, hand over, disappear. Do It Now.

Andrew Bolt, of the Herald Sun, has devastated his blog faithful with this spiked boot kick right in the balls of the old man, shredding Howard for daring to appear on the deck of a cruiser on the harbour with George W. Bush. Even worse for Bolt, Howard is laughing. Howard is having a good time, while the C & Ns are suffering :

Could that Liberal genius estimate to nearest 10,000 exactly how many votes that image of a man in denial enjoying his privileges will cost the Government?

Case closed. Howard is not just finished, but punishing the Liberals with each extra day he clings on to power....he either doesn’t know or doesn’t care.

Wow. Harsh stuff. Today, Bolt predicts :

I’d say there’s a better than even chance John Howard steps down as early as next week.

The new prime minister, who should be Peter Costello, will have some 80 days to save the Liberals.

Botl then begins to dream of a brighter, Howard-free future.

The Australian's Janet Albrechtsen, after praising Howard for a few hundred words with lines like these :

Under Howard it became cool to be a conservative. He rebuilt a political philosophy of individual responsibility for a new generation. His legacy is profound...

...unloads the napalm :

But now he must go. The Howard factor is there. Where once it meant success, now it presages defeat.

Like Bolt, Albrechtsen is demanding Howard step aside, because no-one will tell him to bugger off. He must leave now and hand over the leadership to treasurer Peter Costello.

Few of the C & Ns really believe Costello can win the election, but they're praying that he will at very minimum stop the Liberal Party from being decimated like a crate of VB at a grand final barbecue.

The C & Ns are not just panicking. They're pissing their pants in fear. They're one more devastating poll away from looking for volunteers to load up a suicide vest and go give the prime minister an explosive hug goodbye.

But Howard should stay. He should stay and fight the election. And he should be beaten, fair and square. I think most Australians will have more respect for him if he loses the fight instead of ducking out the back door like a coward before the fists begin to fly.

Australians on the whole don't hate losers, unlike the miserable, unforgiving minority of C & Ns.

The vast majority of Australians respect anyone who's willing to have a go, even when defeat is obvious. But they don't have much respect for quitters. And no matter how many in the Murdoch dominated Australian media (70% of all newspapers) try and spin his departure as "going out while still at the top of his game", If Howard quits, the general public will shake their heads and mutter, "Shit, what a gutless bastard."

Howard has to stay, fight as hard as he can and then lose with grace and dignity if he wants to keep the respect that many Australians still clearly have for him.

But the C & Ns don't care about all that. They know this is End Game territory. They're terrified that come 2008 they will be the Australian equivalent of the American Republican Party - shattered by defeat, awash with scandal and infighting and coming apart at the seams in a grisly self-slaughter so appalling to watch that even die-hard enemies can no longer bare to look and have to turn away from the hideous spectacle.

If I was John Howard, I wouldn't be looking for the tap on the shoulder, as they say. I'd be watching out for the bus mounting the curb while out on a brisk morning walk.

John Howard has often mused that he could "go under a bus tomorrow" when asked by journalists if was considering stepping down.

If he doesn't quit in the next week or two, the C & Ns might decide to find a way to make that musing come true. Politically, or physically.

The C & Ns are not fucking around anymore. They're scared, they're desperate and they're utterly dangerous because they know they're just weeks away from losing it all.

That's why they've just scheduled John Howard for termination.