It Sure Beats TV

Are you one of the majority of Australians who now spend more time online than flopped in front of the TV?

According to this story, in 2005 Australians spent an average of 8.9 hours online each week. In 2006, the time online was 12.5 hours. In 2007, Australians had ramped up their online activities to almost 14 hours a week.

We supposedly watched an average of 13.3 hours a week watching TV.

The decrease in TV watching time was a possible early warning sign Australia was approaching the feared "media saturation point'', said Tony Marlow, Nielen Online's Asia-Pacific associate research director.

"At saturation, it becomes difficult for consumers to take on any extra media activity without sacrificing something else - posing new challenges for marketing professionals," he said.

Do you live in fear of reaching a "media saturation point"? No, that would be the advertisers.

Apparently Australians devote almost 85 hours a week in total to leisure and soaking up media, up by some 13 hours since 2006.

...the increasing amount of time spent online was not at the expense of other media usage.

People were simply consuming more than one medium at a time, the research showed, with 58 per cent of Internet users saying they had watched TV while online and 48 per cent saying they had listened to the radio.

And that probably explains how most Australians use the internet at home in the evenings. The TV is on, but is no longer the sole focus of attention for most of the evening. Laptops are humming away in our living rooms, snatching our attention away from six minute blocks of blaring ads and TV shows that can no longer dominate our interest now so many of us have this remarkable access to a world of information and media on the coffee table in front of us. Between our brains and whatever is on the TV screen.

As with the music and film industries, the TV industry has also been stupidly slow to work out that the internet would kick its flabby, 20th century butt.

Until it becomes part and parcel of our internet habit, TV as we know it now will continue to lose its already dwindling audience.

We've simply got more interesting ways to spend our time in the evenings and on weekends now. Having to watch a TV show at a set time with 30 percent of that time soaked up by ads, seems almost prehistoric, and pathetic.

We are no longer a captive audience.

Help, My Brain Just Melted



Andrew "The Iraq Was Is Won" Bolt splutters with helpless fury at Liberal Party leader Brendan Nelson's new mantra on climate change :

For heaven’s sake. Brendan Nelson gives a speech to define the Liberals’ identity, and winds up channelling Al Gore instead:

Dr Nelson said the challenge of climate change and the need for a genuine global solution was the “most important economic, political and moral challenge to face our generation”.

Moral challenge? A scientific, technological and economic challenge, maybe, but moral?

With that one stupid word, Nelson damns the better-qualified sceptics in his party (and those silent ones in Kevin Rudd’s ministry) as not just wrong, but immoral.

One of the reasons, one of the many but certainly a key reason, why John Howard lost the election was he didn't keep up with the changing national belief and debate on climate change. One of the main reasons Howard did that is because he believed Andrew Bolt was right, and that Australians would always see global warming as a Green Conspiracy to take away their big screen TVs and make them live by firefly illumination.

When Howard was still claiming the debate was not yet over, and all the facts weren't in, the consensus amongst voters had already settled that climate change was real enough for them to believe that it threatened the livelihoods of their children and grandchildren and, therefore, was not an issue to be ignored. Or denied. Or mocked.

Some Howard advisors, like a good number of his personal staff, found refuge in 2006 and 2007 with Andrew Bolt And The BoltOns, where they mingled online with a small slice of the minority of Australians who sincerely believed that Al Gore was almost Hitler-evil, and that climate change really was a Green Conspiracy that would have us all living in bark shacks without electricity and flush toilets and sustaining on mung beans and tofu within five years.

But the real kick in the guts for Howard, and for Bolt, came when Bolt's boss Rupert Murdoch (who Howard once referred to as "God") announced in mid-2007 that he believed climate change was real, that it posed "dire consequences" and that most of the Murdoch media around the world would begin full-blown promotion of climate change as a reality that cannot be ignored.

Howard didn't see that coming, and obviously wasn't told in advance what Murdoch was going to announce, and so he was caught out with no time to prepare, or to soften up his Liberals for a superbackflip and spectacular "Me Too!" on dealing with climate change. That came only weeks out from the November election.

The Liberals know all too well now what happens when they take Andrew Bolt-approved conspiracy theories to the Australian people. They lose government. Which is why Brendan Nelson doesn't parrot Andrew And TheBoltOns the way Howard, Alexander Downer and Tony Abbott used to. They learned their lesson.

Bolt's fury is not so much directed at Nelson as it is towards himself for being left so far behind on the climate change issue, for being so out of tune with the majority of Australians, for having so much less impact and influence on the Australian mind than Al Gore, or Tim Flannery, and for helping to destroy the Liberal Party.

Andrew Bolt knows this, all of this, of course, but is not yet man enough to admit his vital role in the downfall of John Howard and the immolation of the Australian conservative movement.

Libs Cry Poverty Over $150,000 Pay

Even though they are earning more than triple the average Australian wage, and have more perks and privileges than a flake-cocaine dealer in the film industry, the Coalition in opposition now bleats that they aren't earning enough. And they want more. Of course they do.

Interesting they never rallied to fight for better pay for opposition MPs when they were in government.

Annnabel Crabbe :

Coalition frontbenchers, still stinging from the financial blow of slipping from government into opposition, have launched a quiet campaign for a pay rise.

It is understood senior shadow ministers have sounded out the Government on the possibility of a significant pay boost for Opposition frontbenchers, who are paid a standard backbench salary despite their increased workload.

Former ministers have taken huge pay cuts since their election defeat in November. The former health minister Tony Abbott, for example, went from earning a total package of $250,000 to just under $150,000.

Mark Vaile, the former deputy prime minister, lost half of his total package of about $300,000.

Only $150,000 a year?

If Labor really wanted to decimate the ranks of the Liberal Party in opposition, all they'd have to do is lower the pay of these poverty-riddled conservatives. Give them, say, the same amount that the average nurse or policeman or firefighter earns in a year and watch them bail in panicked droves on their service to the nation.

Shit pay is, of course, why so few 'Liberal' conservatives dedicate their lives to teaching in schools, which is also why they also piss on and on about how many Evil Lefties there are in front of the whiteboards. They don't actually want to live within sight of the poverty line to educate children, but they sure do love putting the boot into those that do.

The standard argument from conservatives in particular is that our politicians are sacrificing massive seven figures salaries they could easily earn in the private sector to serve the Australian public.

Really?

Well, sacrifice no more. Don't let your utterly selfless service to the nation hold you back from that $3 million a year gig with the Macquarie Bank. They must be ringing you every week, begging you to come on board. Right Peter Costello?

Bail on us and ditch that pitiful six figure salary. The millions of families almost getting by on $40,000 a year will understand.

I'm sure we'll survive without you.

Somehow.

Libs Now Taking Question Time 'Requests'

The Liberal Party is the party of ideas, or so they like to claim. That doesn't mean they've got a lot of ideas, but they like ideas in general. Now they want your ideas. But they just don't want your ideas, they want you to write questions for them to read out during Question Time in Parliament House.

Submit your QT questions here and you too could enjoy the vicarious thrill of having Tony Abbott read your submission in the nation's Parliament.

All for open and digital democracy here, but maybe the Libs should be reading out the really good public-submitted questions with a "Sarah from Quakers Hill would like me to ask the prime minister about..." intro. Credit where it's due, particularly when the public deliver questions that launch a negative-Rudd issue into the headlines for the Liberals.

Of course if you're a real bastard, you can submit the kinds of questions to the Liberal Party that will get them all very excited and send them dashing about digging through records and files for a few days, only to discover they've been sent on a pointless treasure-free hunt.

But I'm sure Labor has more than enough extra staff right now to fuck around the Liberals like that.

Now Labor digital operatives don't have to bother posting false leads to Andrew Bolt and Piers Akerman blogs to get the Libs to blow dozens of hours searching for facts inside mostly fictitious accusations and briefly promising Rudd scandals.

Hell, if they're really clever about it, some Labor staffer might even be able to use the Liberal Party's 'Submit Your QT Question' page to get Brendan Nelson himself all damply furious enough about a billboard-bright potential Labor controversy to recite a fake question during Question Time.

The challenge is on.

Murdoch's Lite Porn Meat Market

A reader forwards the below screen capture from a news.com.au story page earlier today. 'Gussal' went to look at this readers comments page about why PM Rudd must show backbone on dealing with China, after they slaughtered more than 80 Tibetan protesters. Here's the big ad box that accompanied this serious news :




Gussal : "Are the 'Monster Peenus' and 'I'm Dirty Wendy' spam e-mails following me online now? Why am I being targeted by porn ads? What the fuck is this about?"

Tits N' News. It's the Rupert Murdoch way.

Christ Compels Government To Fund Exorcisms For Young Women

You're Not Mentally Ill, You Are Possessed By Demons

I wonder what the non-Evangelical population of Australia (that would be almost all Australians) think about their taxes being used to fund exorcisms and anti-demon counseling programs?

A secretive ministry with direct links to Gloria Jean's Coffees and the Hillsong Church has been deceiving troubled young women into signing over months of their lives to a program that offers scant medical or psychiatric care, instead using Bible studies and exorcisms to treat mental illness.

Government agencies such as Centrelink have also been drawn into the controversy, as residents are required to transfer their benefits to Mercy Ministries. There are also allegations that the group receives a carers payment to look after the young women.

Naomi Johnson, Rhiannon Canham-Wright and Megan Smith (Megan asked to use an assumed name) went into Mercy Ministries independent young women, and came out broken and suicidal, believing, as Mercy staff had told them repeatedly, that they were possessed by demons and that Satan controlled them.

Hello Mercy Ministries, welcome to the 21st century.

...the program is focused on prayer, Christian counselling and expelling demons from in and around the young women, who say they begged Mercy Ministries to let them get medical help for the conditions they were suffering, which included bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders and anorexia.

Mercy Ministries are proud to admit they practice exorcisms, anti-demon counseling and Bible studies to help young women cope with mental disorders.

Not only does Mercy Ministries appear unconcerned by the allegations, it is mounting an aggressive expansion campaign. Peter Irvine, its former managing director, now director of corporate sponsorship, confirmed it was opening houses in Adelaide, Perth, Townsville, Newcastle, Melbourne and another Sydney house, in the southern suburbs.

Allan Fels, dean of the Australia and New Zealand School of Government and former chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, said if Mercy Ministries had made false claims about its services it would be in breach of the law and could face injunctions, damages and fines.

"Both the federal Trade Practices Act and the relevant state fair trading acts would seem to apply to the situation since income is being received by Mercy Ministries. Both laws prohibit misleading and deceptive conduct."

Right. Now that's a court case I'd like to see : Mercy Ministries having to prove in court that demonic possession leads to anorexia and the use of exorcisms is an effective method of curing bipolar disorder.

"I call to the witness stand...Satan!"

Supreme Court Cites Climate Change As Reason To Ban Houses By The Beach

This story's a few days old now, but it didn't get much attention from the mainstream media. Strange, considering it sets a precedent for less homes being built near Australian beaches and along our coastlines :

In a portent of how climate change could transform town planning along the nation's coastlines, the South Australian Supreme Court has ruled that predicted sea level rises are a valid reason to reject beachfront housing developments.

The rejection of a subdivision on Yorke Peninsula, west of Adelaide, is likely to be repeated across the country as councils progressively write climate change provisions into their planning regulations.

The South Australian Supreme Court cited local sea level rises of 30cm over the next 50 years in ruling yesterday against Northcape Properties' plans for 80 holiday homes at Marion Bay, 150km west of Adelaide.

Judge Bruce Debelle endorsed earlier decisions by the state's Environment Court and Yorke Peninsula Council, which is one of the first coastal districts to incorporate stringent climate change clauses into its planning rules.

In ruling against Northcape's appeal, Justice Debelle confirmed the Environment Court's conclusion that the Marion Bay waterline would "recede inland by 35-40m" in the next 100 years.

Council chief executive Ricki Bruhn was delighted the court had vindicated his council's decision to add climate change clauses to its development plan in 2004.

"We're aware of rising sea levels and erosion in that area now," he said. "And being surrounded by water on three sides, we bear the brunt of any storm surges."

It's not just the courts (one court so far) that use climate change projections in deciding such matters. Whether you believe climate change will adversely impact Australia or not, most insurance companies now figure in the presumed effects of climate change in devising home insurance policies for the next decade or two.

That is, we will soon see a day when insurance companies will refuse to insure homes on beachfronts, or close to our coastlines, and make it harder to insure homes against what will be battled in courts as something like "climate change-related damage."

In a few years, if you own a home along a stretch of coastline predicted as likely to be hit by tidal surges, you will likely pay heavily in insurance premiums. If you can actually get insurance, that is.

The great Australian dream of owning a home by the beach is already almost out of reach for most Australians, with beach and coastal property prices on the east and west coasts mostly staying strong.

If Australian courts are now more likely to rule out beachfront and coastal developments because of climate change, a beach house for most Australians in the future will go from a perhaps reachable dream into the realm of pure fantasy.

Norway's black metal legends Immortal, Sydney's Metro Theatre, March 15, 2008













Firebreathing


















All photos by Darryl Mason

Report : 300,000 Families Will Face Losing Their Homes This Year

What sort of breakdown of society, and community, results from such hardship inflicted on so very, very many Australian families?

An alarming 300,000 households will be under severe mortgage stress by mid-2008 and at risk of losing their homes as interest rates and living costs rise, a new report shows.

The new report, based on the results of telephone interviews with 26,000 Australian households, estimates more than 700,000 households will be experiencing some form of mortgage stress by June this year, a four-fold increase on last year.

It said mild stress was epitomised by households which prioritised or cut spending to pay their mortgages.

About 300,000 households will be experiencing severe stress, meaning they will have missed repayments, be in the process of refinancing or have received a foreclosure notice.

The report also pointed to a rise in "affluent stress" of high net worth borrowers suffering from rising rates, school fees and share margin calls.

We don't even yet know the full scope of how the US subprime mortgage obliteration will impact on Australian banks and investment funds. There's a lot of worthless debt out there no-one wants to claim ownership of, because sticking your hand up for those mortgages may hammer your stock price.

If you don't have a mortgage, if you don't have credit card debt, if you don't owe thousands of dollars to anyone or any institution, you can soon call yourself wealthy, at least compared to the million or more families now stuck with rising mortgages for homes that are losing value.

Howard Speaks...More Guff And Twaddle

'Conservative' Losers Claim Victory, For Losing

By Darryl Mason

John Howard has given his first interview since his humiliating election annihilation in November last year. Don't get too excited there, Howard's interview is about as dry and lifeless as a warm glass of salt and sand. But then, that shouldn't come as a surprise.

More interesting than most of what Howard has to say, is who he decided to say it to. That would be Janet Albrechtsen of The Australian newspaper.

You remember Janet, surely? She was the one who told Howard a few months out from the 2007 election that he had to quit, for the good of the Liberal Party, and for the ultimate benefit of Australian conservatism.

Here's a little flashback from Janet :

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...

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

Of course, that column from Janet, back in September, 2007, didn't come as a complete shock to Howard. How could it? Janet rang Howard's office to let him know what she was publishing, before she even wrote it :

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....

In trying to fill in the gaps around the dull Howard quotes in her story - it being painfully obvious that he has little of anything fresh or interesting to say - Janet sprays a fresh coat of much-needed varnish on her Monty Python-absurdity level theory that Howard's hammering in the election, and the evisceration of the Liberal Party in general, actually means that conservatism is victorious in Australia :

Howard’s critics still don’t get it. In the sweep of history, conservatism has triumphed.

Since the election of the Rudd Government, the familiar refrain is that conservatism is beat. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has said that the right-left labels no longer apply. Yet, Rudd eagerly embraced much of the conservative agenda.

Yes, she's right. Rudd did embrace "much of the conservative agenda". That would be the "conservative agenda" of saying 'Sorry' to Aborigines, ratifying Kyoto, culling politicians' perks, pulling combat troops out of Iraq, nixing nuclear power, ramping up renewable energy programs, rewiring the Australian economy to deal with climate change, embracing carbon trading, obliterating WorkChoices and on and on.

You know, the 'New Conservatism'. It's not much like the old Howard conservatism, but it's far more popular and reflective of the Australia that most Australians want to live in.

Janet actually sums up the John Howard of 2008 perfectly in the story's intro :

For Howard, it is history that counts. And he is confident that history is on his side.

As long as people like Janet are writing the history, that is.

Some more desperate myth-making from Janet :

To be sure, Howard bears much of the blame for the final stain that tarnishes his record. After all, a leader is inevitably defined by their last act in office. Howard’s failure to heed the advice of his senior Liberal colleagues to hand over the leadership to Peter Costello last September will always be remembered as a final act of hubris. Deciding to stay on, preferring to be remembered by history as a fighter, not a quitter, knowing that electoral defeat was ahead, his leadership record would be indelibly marked down.

Keep spinning the myth, Janet, that if Costello became leader in September, election victory would have been in the bag. Dozens of polls in Janet's own newspaper reported all through 2007 that while Howard remained largely popular with voters, the Liberal Party, as in the primary political entity of Australian conservatism, was dying a long overdue death.

If the following quote from John Howard is anything to go by, he might want to check with medical professionals to see that at least a few of his neural pathways are still lighting up before he opens his mouth :

“The most constant comment made in the lead-up to the last election is that Rudd was trying to be a younger version of me. And there is some truth to that ... He did not win because he was different. He won because he was like me.”

Actually the most "constant comment" in the lead-up to the last election was that Howard was a tired old man, fresh out of ideas.

Poor John. He really did believe all that crap about Rudd being "a younger version of Howard" spouted by the likes of Janet, Andrew Bolt, Alan Jones and most of the op-ed writers of The Australian.

For those who were recently claiming that John Howard will never become like former prime ministers Paul Keating, Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, popping up in the media waffling embarrassing piffle, it's too late. Howard's clearly ready now to take his place in the all-singing, all-dancing cast of Nutty Old PMs Who Can't Stop Talking Absolute Bollocks.

It's hard to decide what is more pathetic, and sad. The delusional propaganda from media-stacking conservatives like Janet Albrechtsen that they really won the election by losing the election, or the fact that Howard now clearly believes the line that Rudd is "a younger, better looking Howard" and that's the only reason why Labor was victorious.

Doesn't John Howard know that irony-rich line was dreamed up and distributed, via phone calls and boozy lunches to Howard Huggers, like Janet, by his own media strategists?

They say you shouldn't believe your own press. But in Howard's case, he shouldn't believe turd-polishing propaganda that originated from his own office and PR people, no matter how attractive and ego-inflating it may be.

Expect John Howard to be writing a weekly column for The Australian by June. He should feel right at home.

"We're Not Dead Yet"

Panicky kids. A retired couple can't even go away for a weekend without the cops being called and a police media conference being held at the couples' "abandoned" house. Good thing the "missing", presumed murdered, old couple turned up when they did.

Just as the "we think they're dead" media conference was about to start.

A fantastic good news story, with some of the best quotes of the week :

The signs weren't good. The couple had been missing since Thursday, their house was unlocked, their pet dog abandoned, and their home in disarray. But with the Homicide Squad about to make a media appeal for information, in drove the couple in their orange Kombi van, blissfully unaware of the fuss they'd caused.

The disappearance was out of character, so police rallied the media at the couple's house, and were just about to begin their public appeal, when who should appear. As the faithful orange Kombi chugged into the driveway, Mrs Ostell was just as shocked as the strangers on her lawn.

HEATHER OSTELL: Oh look, my heart just went down to my feet. I just couldn't imagine what had happened.

First Mrs Ostell had to weather a chiding from her daughter, who sprinted through the media pack to meet them.

HEATHER OSTELL: She screamed at me (laughs). She just screamed at me, "where have you been?" And she's very upset naturally and shaking, and so I'm going to have to make my peace with her in a moment.

The daughter asked the question usually reserved for parental inquisitions, why didn't they call?

HEATHER OSTELL: Would you believe we forgot the charger? (laughs)

The Homicide Squad's Charlie Bezzina was relieved at an outcome he rarely gets to enjoy.

CHARLIE BEZZINA: These are the good news stories we like, and it's just a breakdown in communications....I'd rather be inconvenienced nine times out of 10, rather than get bad news.

Mrs Ostell says she did feel odd hearing police were looking for her body, but she was proud of their work.

HEATHER OSTELL: Yes, but at least they'd picked out a nice photograph. I thought, "Well if I was dead, I'm glad they picked out a nice picture".

Do you have a nice picture of yourself ready and waiting for the police to hand to the media if you're ever abducted, murdered in a forest or disappear forever into a chink of the space-time continuium? Your relatives can't be trusted not to pick that photo of you blind-drunk and passed out on the lounge from Christmas Day, 1992. How else do you think some of those horrendous photos of missing people get into the newspapers and on the evening news?

An MP3 of the story can be snatched here

Double-Bolted

Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt panicked after The Orstrahyun picked up on his libel here and wrenched his weekend blog post about prime minister Kevin Rudd's visit to Papua New Guinea, where Bolt accused Rudd of "overlooking" alleged pedophilia and corruption in PNG because the locals clapped loudly when he visited an isolated highlands community.

This is Bolt before The Orstrahyun story :

...you’d think that strained relationship was all due to Howard being mean, instead of PNG being notoriously corrupt and also hiding an (sic) pedophile now facing trial in Australia...

This is Bolt after The Orstrahyun story :

....you’d think that strained relationship was all due to Howard being mean, instead of PNG being notoriously corrupt and also hiding a man now facing trial on charges of child sex abuse in Australia.

Hilariously, after tagging an unconvicted man as "an pedophile", and changing the line without making it clear he had done so, Bolt then berates his readers for daring to do what he had done, only a few hours earlier :

I should also stress that Mr Moti is charged with sex offences, but says he is not guilty and nothing yet has been proven against him. He must therefore be presumed to be innocent.

Likewise, any claims that the PNG Prime Minister is corrupt have not been proven anywhere to my knowledge and he, too, must be presumed to be innocent. Therefore any readers who make such allegations in comments below will be and have been snipped.

What Bolt actually meant was that anybody who tried to point out on his blog that he libeled Julian Moti, and caused injury to the likelihood of a fair trial in Australia for alleged underage sex crimes, would not make it onto his comment boards. Bolt must be "snipping" more comments than he publishes these days.

More incredibly sloppy journalism, libel, back-tracking and personal white-washing from Bolt, as he becomes more shrill, sneaky and hysterical by the day.

It's almost entertaining.

Ned Kelly's Remains Found In Prison Mass Grave


The Ned Kelly death mask, freshly cast off the corpse

The remains of Ned Kelly, one of the most legendary men, and most famous criminal, of Australia's short history, were dumped into a mass grave outside the prison where he was executed in 1880. His bones have recently been uncovered, though the skull is still missing. Wonder which family has been quietly passing that unique piece of Australiana from generation to generation?

The grave site of Australia's most notorious bushranger was discovered after historians and archeologists unearthed an old Department of Justice document yielding a vital clue.

Bone hunters during the week finally found an unknown mass grave where the remains of Kelly and other executed prisoners - removed from the Old Melbourne Gaol when it closed in 1929 - were interred at Pentridge.

"We have still some testing to do, but it's pretty clear we have found them," Heritage Victoria Senior Archeologist Jeremy Smith said yesterday.

Plans for the remains have not been finalised, but a publicly accessible cemetery and rose garden will be created at Pentridge.

Kelly was hanged at Melbourne Gaol on November 11, 1880, for crimes including murder.

Must be time to attempt to clone Ned Kelly by now. When the clones grow up, they can go on tour through our shopping centres and malls, perhaps a musical. Or just focus on TV. Ned Kelly Idol? Dancing With The Neds?

Australians loved, and still love, their bushrangers, even the cop killers.

Here's a clip of Heath Ledger in the sadly under-rated Ned Kelly movie, by Gregor Jordan. This is the last minutes of the movie :



A more traditional image of Kelly.

Andrew Bolt : Clap Loudly Enough And Prime Minister Rudd Will Overlook Your Pedophile Problem

UPDATE : As of 3.27pm Saturday afternoon, Andrew Bolt has apparently pulled his story 'PNG Applauds Rudd's Easy Cash', which is quoted below, from his blog site at the Herald Sun. That's why the links below, at the time of posting, go an empty page. But you can see the full piece that Bolt has disappeared at the bottom of this post.

I think this is the third or fourth blog post Bolt has tried to delete in the past 12 months, after he has been called to account for his statements and claims by The Orstrahyun.


PREVIOUSLY :

Murdoch star hack Andrew Bolt slips back into his creepy old Howard-era dementoid mindset for some light hysteria on prime minister Kevin Rudd and Australia's hopefully more positive relationship with Papua New Guinea :

...you’d think that strained relationship was all due to Howard being mean, instead of PNG being notoriously corrupt and also hiding an (sic) pedophile now facing trial in Australia...

Yes, forget about all those thousands of pistols and shotguns collected in Australia during John Howard's post-Port Arthur Massacre buy-up that somehow, miraculously, escaped the crushers and re-appeared in PNG highlands, where gun-violence is rising.

There’s nothing that PNG can’t overlook if the price is right, claims Bolt.

Rudd has decided to ramp up funding to PNG presumably in the belief that they might be able to better tackle their horrific AIDS problem. With the highest rate of HIV in the Pacific, Rudd is handing over $13 in extra funding to deal with the crisis. Overall, Rudd has increased Australia's aid contribution to PNG by $25 million.

Bolt appears to be neither proud nor glad that Australia is helping to fund anti-AIDS programs for the people of one of our poorest neighbours. What?

Bolt concludes that there is :

...nothing Rudd won’t overlook if the applause is loud enough.

Ay?

Obviously Bolt is not talking about Rudd overlooking the AIDS epidemic in PNG, because he's just quoted a positive story where Rudd has increased funding, so Bolt must be talking about the child sex abuse case against Julian Moti, which he refers to earlier.

What a scoop!

Being such a credible, well researched and thoroughly sourced journalist, unlike the legions of Evil Lefties at the ABC and The Age, Bolt must be sitting on one hell of a story seeing as he is trying to link Rudd to covering up, or "overlooking" at the very least, pedophile-related crimes in Papua New Guinea.

Of course when challenged on these claims at his blog, Bolt will retreat to his usual cowardly ambiguity on what he really means, or he will claim he never meant anything at all, and readers are projecting.

It's becoming a tired, downright pathetic Bolt ruse to stir up his regular commentors, the Evil Lefties anyway, who will then be accused of trying to smear Bolt or of simply being paranoid.

You will need to challenge Bolt on this, if you think it necessary, because he's banned me from commenting. Mostly because of blog posts like this.

Bolt is losing it.


UPDATE : Here is the full copy of the 'PNG Applauds Rudd's Easy Cash' smear job by Andrew Bolt that he has deleted (for now) from his blog. Click the screengrab for a larger version :



I've emailed Bolt to find out why he has deleted this post, but I don't expect to hear back from him any time soon. I've offered to include his right of reply on this in a further update.

UPDATE : The deleted Bolt blog post can also be viewed at Google Cache.

UPDATE : Half an hour after I emailed Bolt for an explanation on why he deleted the above post, it reappears on the site. Bolt's explanation?

Sorry for taking this post off line for a few hours. Pure accident.

The Big Loser Speaks


John Howard : proud recipient of treasured NeoCon-approved crystal salad bowl

John Howard gleefully accepts a big fat NeoCon pay cheque for forcing Australia into adding some international legitimacy to the Iraq War, against the will of the vast majority of Australians, and finally speaks to his people...in the United States :

'I'm Absolutely Shameless And You're The Only Friends I Have Left, Please Pay Me $50,000'

Unfortunately for the Liberals, and conservatives (we'll list them as separate to the "we're with you Mr Rudd" Liberal Party because it seems to make the conservatives happy) who were hoping the Big Loser would light their way forward with some much needed illumination, and inspiration, Howard is still flogging the same load of old wank that lost him the election.

American NeoCons like to reward their international lickspittles with 'tours' of US 'think tanks'. Of course Howard got a hero's welcome at the American Enterprise Institute yesterday. Why wouldn't he? The American war industries that fund so many of these 'think tanks' have seen profits soar majestically since 9/11, while other American industries have spluttered to a halt and laid off millions of workers.

The AEI loves Howard. He's as hollow and shameless as they are.

Howard did what he was told in Washington in the days after September 11, 2001, and committed Australia to the War On Iraq without consulting his own government, the opposition, or even engaging the Australian people and asking what them what they thought.

Now Howard is getting his blood money.

Is It Even Possible To Be This Unpopular?

Opposition leader Brendan Nelson is the preferred prime minister in the minds of only 7% of Australians, and the Coalition is the preferred government of a mere 31%.

The new poll reveals that support for the Coalition has plunged a mindblowing 25% in three months.

Have I missed something? Have Coalition shadow ministers been videod clubbing baby koalas or eating whale meat kebabs?

The truth is, of course, that John Howard really was the vote catcher of the Coalition. He was their messiah and their antichrist. Even people who hated John Howard still found reasons to vote for him, or at least agree with him. With Howard gone, we now see exactly how popular the Liberal Party is in Australia. About as popular as the Bush administration is in the United States. About as popular as a kick in the nuts.

Losing Howard and gaining Nelson as leader is like sending The Rolling Stones on the road without Mick Jagger. Sure, some people will still go to see Keith Richards play, but you won't get a fireworks show, and your wife and most of your friends probably won't want to come with you.

It must be almost embarrassing for Kevin Rudd and Labor to discover how much of the country is behind them, and so very supportive during the new government's first 100 days in office, despite interest rate rises, housing shortage horrors, a plunging stockmarket and Rudd turning out to be even more dull and droll than he was as opposition leader.

73% of Australians favour Rudd as prime minister, and 51% prefer Labor over the Coalition.

7%. Nelson isn't leadership material, but how can his ratings be so utterly apocalyptic?

After all, he's not Tony Abbott.

Or Alexander Downer.

Maybe Nelson should get back on his motorbike and start popping a few monos outside Parliament House for the media. Hell, maybe he should just try and Knievel his way right over Parliament House while standing on the handlebars.

Such a stunt couldn't make him any more unpopular than he is right now.

Not Too Subtle



The Jubilee Fountain was removed from Sydney's Rushcutter's Bay Park many decades ago. Can't imagine why...

1 Million Sydneysiders Want Out Of 'The World's Best City'

Only two days after Sydney was declared the world's best city (through a poll that placed Melbourne at #6), another poll reveals that one in five people who call Sydney home want to leave. Permanently.

Brilliant. A simple solution to rental shortages and fury-inducing traffic crawl presents itself : don't build more apartments and add new lanes to busy roads, just offer incentives to help the one million people who want to leave to get the hell out.

Problem solved?

Bali Bombers Will Soon Be Shot Dead


The morning after the Bali bombings in Kuta

Three of the key terrorists responsible for the Bali bombings are now waiting to die on an Indonesian prison island. Their executioners are camping outside the prison, and have been there for two months, waiting to do their jobs. There will be no clemency given by Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and their current appeals will fail. All three should be dead by the day, October 12, of the sixth anniversary of the bombings.

An extraordinary encounter with the three key Bali bombers :

Imam Samudra, 38, was the planner who chose the targets in Bali and organised two suicide bombers to carry out the attacks.

Ali Ghufron, 48, better known as Mukhlas, was the financier who once met Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan while making his own pilgrimage from theologian to jihadist.

Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, 46, dubbed "the Smiling Bomber", was the village mechanic who bought the explosives and the Mitsubishi van used as a car bomb.

The first suicide bomber walked into Paddy's Bar and set off a bomb in the middle of a crowd of customers. The second bomber waited for people to flee into the street, then detonated the Mitsubishi, packed with more than a tonne of explosives, outside the Sari Club. The victims were incinerated or flayed, died of shock or perished later from their burns and injuries.

The three men in the room with us were caught, tried, convicted and sentenced to death. They said they had been stripped naked, beaten, given electric shocks and plunged into baths of water to make them talk.

"People called me the mastermind of the Bali bombing," (Samudra) said. "Maybe right, maybe wrong. My only mission was to help the Muslims."

And then he said something extraordinary. He claimed the bombers never meant to kill so many people. What happened at Paddy's Bar and the Sari Club was "unacceptable", he said.

Had he made the bomb? "No, no, no," he said, shaking his head. "I didn't help to make it, and who made the bomb and when I don't know."

The second explosion was much bigger than they had expected, he said.

The only explanation, he suggested, was that "the CIA or KGB or Mossad" - those familiar bogeymen of the conspiracy theorist - somehow tampered with the bomb. "It is very possible," he claimed. "I learned about explosives in Afghanistan. As you know, I may be an expert."

The truth may never be known.

Two months before the bombing, he said, he had studied tourist literature to narrow down the list of targets.

Once on the scene, he said, "I observed Zionists. I knew they were using it (the bar) and then also I know I could spread this, with Australia, with Aussies."

Samudra denied bin Laden paid for the bombing, saying: "The money came from other people.

"Some try to make a link between al-Qa'ida and us. Now I don't know about this. We are not linked. The only link is faith and teachings."

Mukhlas, who prosecutors say raised the funds, also denied receiving money from bin Laden, saying: "I collected it from supporters in Malaysia and Indonesia."

It was almost a relief when Amrozi came over, sat down and squeezed my leg in a friendly manner. "My smile is my weapon," he said. "It makes my enemies upset. This is a special weapon for jihad."

What a different world it would be if terrorists attacked with smiles instead of bombs and guns.

The Full Story Is Here

UPDATE : Why is News.com.au helping to spread this conspiracy theory?

Scratching My Underbelly

I am a criminal. I've broken the law. I must be punished. When they come for me, I won't put up a fight. I won't leap out the window, or try to disguise myself as an indoor palm. I will go peacefully, and I will do my time in prison and pray that my deserved incarceration relieves me of the rancid, crippling guilt that infects my very being.

I knew it was wrong, but I did it anyway. I couldn't stop myself. I read that pirated copies of the brilliant Australian true-crime TV series Underbelly were up on The Pirate Bay and available for download. And I downloaded them. Not just the three episodes already screened, but this week's episode, and next week's and the week after.

Not only did I watch them, I told others where to score a hit for themselves.

I am a criminal. But I'm not alone. So when I go to prison, I might run into some of the "tens of thousands of Australians (who) have risked a prison term and hefty fines" to illegally download Underbelly episodes. At least we'll all have something to talk about.

All the controversy about Underbelly began a few weeks back when Supreme Court judge Justice Betty King issued a suppression order to stop the show being screened on TV in Victoria. Rightly, Justice King decided the TV series might prejudice a murder trial connected with the gangsters slightly fictionalised in Underbelly.

The problem, of course, is that television is now only one of the many ways people can watch a show. Despite the ban, tens of thousands in Victoria have now seen Underbelly, online, on bootleg DVDs, as MP4 files on their iPods, at Underbelly home parties and in the pubs that have been brave enough to screen the copies flooding in across the border (and online).

But :

Downloading TV show and movies from the internet is illegal under Australian copyright law and anyone caught with copies risks up to five years jail and fines of up to $60,500.

Anyone caught distributing or selling copyrighted footage of Underbelly could be charged with contempt of court.

A spokeswoman for Channel 9 said the network would take legal action against anyone caught downloading or distributing its prized program.

Can you imagine Channel 9 pursuing legal action against anyone for downloading Underbelly? If Channel 9 tried to jail tens of thousands of its viewers for five years, the outrage would be voluminous and fantastic, and deeply embarrassing for anyone connected with Channel 9.

And how much would it cost them to pursue legal action "against anyone" who has made an illegal copy of Underbelly? And for what result? To publicly prove just how behind the times Channel 9 is? To reveal just how out of touch they are with so much of their primary audience, who already watch many hours of TV shows online, and ongadget, each week?

Is it not my fault, or your fault, that Channel 9 is still locked in the 20th century, and insists on drip-feeding its latest series to a hungry audience who would mostly buy all the episodes in one go, for a reasonable price, if only they were made available now.

And it's not like this revolution in how great swathes of Australia' youth, and under 40s, now watch TV has come out of the blue. The old guard of TV knew online video was coming, but they wanted to cling to the old model they knew so well - "we show it and you watch it when we want you to" - even as advertising dollars slipped away, first in a trickle and now (literally) in a torrent.

Nobody should have to watch their favourite shows at a set time, on a chosen night, if they don't want to. What is this? The 1950s?

Video taping allows for a fair bit of freedom, but the technology is there for buying (without ads) TV shows you want to watch, a whole series at once (if it's been made), that you can then view on your wall screen, your laptop, your portable video player, your phone, when you want to. That television channels and studios haven't already introduced a delivery and payment system as simple and convenient as paying for cable TV by direct debit is their problem, not ours. They are behind the marketplace. They are not meeting marketplace demands

That is their fault, and their problem, not yours.

People will pay to watch their favourite shows (without ads) as long as the means of getting the show downloaded and into digital possession is straightforward, as easy as scoring a ringtone.

It's that simple.

If your favourite fruit shop won't have mangoes for a week, and a shop down the road is giving them away, are you expected to go away and wait?

Absurd.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

So why didn't Channel 9 foresee that there would be a huge market for Underbelly on digital download, or even DVD, once a few episodes had been aired on commercial TV. Why isn't there, at the very least, a box set of Underbelly already for sale in JB HiFi?

It's not your fault, or mine, that they are so lacking in vision that they did not know their market well enough to realise they could have flogged 30,000 or 50,000 box sets of Underbelly off the back of the enormous publicity and interest the show has already generated.

I'm not downloading un-aired episodes of Underbelly because I want to steal from Channel 9 or the show's producers. I just don't want to have to wait a week for another 40 minutes of Underbelly, and I don't want to endure all those fucking commercials.

If it was available for paid download right now, I'd pay.

When Underbelly is released as a DVD box set, I'll buy a copy for my library, and I'll buy a copy for my brother as a Christmas present (if it's out before Christmas), even if I do watch all episodes online (illegally) for free.

That's what 20th century TV networks like Channel 9 don't understand. Just because you watched something for free, doesn't mean you won't also go and buy a hard copy of it, if the packaging and poster and booklet are decent enough.

Why this ridiculous delay between first airing and selling a digital version?

It already seems bizarre that a movie like There Will Be Blood is in cinemas, will disappear for a few months and then not show up on DVD until May or June, if not later. There may be a download you can buy when it's in rental stores, but why can't you buy a copy of it for your wall screen, lap top, or phone right now? Tonight? When interest in it is at its peak?

The reason why tens of thousands of people in Australia are downloading episodes of Underbelly, and illegal copies of There Will Be Blood, right now is not because they don't want to pay to watch it. They just don't want to wait to watch it.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


From news.com.au :

"This is a great problem on the internet," said University of NSW Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre executive director David Vaile.

"Legal jurisdiction is typically limited by geography, and by its nature the internet doesn't place much regard to geography."

Mr Vaile believed Justice King may have taken into consideration the possibility that copies of the drama would appear on the internet, but that it would have limited impact on potential jurors.

"(She) may well have decided that something that is not the official publisher's website will not have the same sort of impact," he said.

However watching illegal versions of the underworld drama will not be without risk.

Mr Vaile said people caught uploading clips from Underbelly could face copyright and contempt of court charges.

"There is potential in some circumstances for that order to render people in contempt," Mr Vaile said.

He added that despite the belief that the internet provides anonymity, authorities would be able to track down any culprits.

"There is a false perception around that activity on the internet is anonymous or that's untraceable. Unfortunately, the opposite is the case," Mr Vaile said.

Which is why I'm confessing to my criminal behaviour here and now. I did it. I downloaded illegal copies of Underbelly, and I watched them on my laptop. I'm not sorry. I will do it again, and again, unless I'm stopped.

I'm waiting for the police to come and arrest me. Channel 9 said they would do me for my crimes. Here I am.

I don't know how many hours of freedom I have left, but I will....oh, wait. Someone's just uploaded Underbelly Episode 7 to The Pirate Bay.

Now I've got something new to watch while I wait for justice to be delivered upon me.

Hopefully I can blog from prison.

Australia's Massive 'Legal' Junkie Problem

For a couple of years in the early 1990s, I lived in and around Kings Cross. I met plenty of junkies.

Junkies, being drug addicts, know a lot about drugs. Some could rhapsodize about the comparative highs from legal and illegal drugs like wine connoisseurs. As the Cross junkies used to tell me, the best drugs of all are not the stuff you score on the street, it's the gear locked away in pharmacy safes, or in "the special drawers" behind the counter.

Heroin addicts don't shoot smack cut with shit because they like getting abscesses. They buy street smack because they can't get their hands on the legal stuff, unlike many doctors, lawyers and the occasional politician. Morphine. Pharmaceutical morphine is, or was, the prize beyond all prizes for the long-term junkheads of Kings Cross. At least four or five junkies I had taken the time to question told me their first opiate high came from a doctor. From a legal prescription.

The trick for those junkies was getting a doctor to prescribe "the diamond gear" for them. That is, pharmacuetical grade opiates. Self-mutilation in the pursuit of a doctor-delivered shot of morphine was not uncommon. A smashed tooth (from a screwdriver) could deliver a few days, or a few weeks (if the shattered gum was doctor-shopped) worth of prescription-only pills chock full of codeine, the little sister of morphine.

One old junkie, let's call him Dave, intervened to stop me getting mugged by three gutless fucks from the Northern Beaches in an alley next to the building where I lived back then. He filled a hypodermic with water from a puddle and then shouted "Oi! C.nts!" When one turned around, Dave squirted him with the brown water from the puddle. At 2am, in an alley sandwiched between tall buildings, it was dark enough for that water to look like blood, which is what Dave told them it was. "AIDS blood c.nts. Want a shot in a vein?"

After that, I always stopped to talk to Dave when I saw him stumbling along Darlinghurst Road. He never hit me up for money, but I probably gave him a few hundred dollars worth of cigarettes in the time I knew him. He gave me in return the wisdom of his years living rough and working harder in his low-income scams than most nine-to-fivers do in their offices.

It was Dave who gave me an education in street junkies versus pharmacy junkies. There might be thousands of smackies, he used to say, but there are hundreds of thousands of legal pill addicts. I found that hard to believe. Impossible, really.

But Dave was right of course. Australians throw down more prescription drugs than just about anyone else in the world, and the numbers of legal pill-popping junkies vastly outweigh those illegal drug-taking junkies your local tabloid columnist so often rants about.

Eight Nurofen-Plus washed down with a few glasses of red wine in half an hour is still drug abuse, even if you bought both drugs legally.

While the media and politicians roar and wail about the hundreds of thousands of Australians who smoke pot or neck an E or two most weekends, without dying, or overdosing, they remain, mostly, remarkably, quiet about the millions of Australians who abuse pharmacy-only and prescription pills on a regular basis and fill casualty wards and emergency rooms.

That's not even getting into the tens of thousands of elderly Australians who haul their old bodies from one doctor to another trading a few minutes of questions for a prescription for painkillers or sleeping tablets.

When the media does report on legal pill popping, the statistics, the levels of human wreckage, are absolutely staggering, and illegal drug abuse stats pales in comparison. Obviously, neither kinds of drug abuse are good, but that's not the point :

Paramedics are treating almost 8000 Melburnians a year for overdoses of prescription and over-the-counter drugs - 11 times the figure for heroin.

In the same period, almost 5100 Melburnians were treated for alcohol-related injuries and poisoning.

Medications are so addictive that 4400 Victorians sought treatment for addiction last year, Department of Human Services figures show.

Medicare's Prescription Shopping Program last year identified 52,925 Australians suspected of "doctor shopping" for more scripts than they needed.

Such medications kill up to three Australians a day - almost as many as die on roads.

Prescription medication is involved in up to 90 per cent of all drug deaths, says the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine's Prof Olaf Drummer.

Australian Medical Association state vice-president Dr Harry Hemley said dealing with prescription-drug addicts was the most serious problem facing doctors.

In the 12 months to last March -- the latest figures available -- paramedics treated almost 8000 people in Melbourne alone for overdoses of prescription and over-the-counter medications. Most victims were aged in their 30s -- and most were women.

Why is it that so many Australians want to get fucked up on pills and booze?

Is reality really that bad, or boring? Or do we simply love getting high?

Australia Declares "Mission Accomplished" In Iraq

By Darryl Mason

When Australian special forces joined the American war to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait in late 1990, a t-shirt that simply said "Fuck Iraq" became as popular as Guns N' Roses merchandise in suburban Australia.

"Fuck Iraq" also became a fast way to strike down any pub conversation about the impending war. You didn't need to hold an opinion on Iraq War I (or The Gulf War), as it was more than acceptable at the time to mutter "Ahh, fuck Iraq" if you were asked what you thought about George HW Bush Vs Saddam Hussein.

"Fuck Iraq" meant "fuck the Iraqis", it also meant "fuck that place", "fuck Saddam" and "fuck if I give a shit."

No interest, no opinion either way, was no big deal back then.

But for Iraq War II (or more accurately The War On Iraq), you had to have an opinion. You were either for or against the war, and and all were for the Iraqi people.

You weren't allowed to say "fuck the Iraqis". That was far, far worse than saying "Fuck Bush" or "Fuck Howard."

For or against the War On Iraq, everybody seemed to argue that the people of Iraq were the first priority of concern...okay, maybe second priority behind your own armed forces. But close.

We were there to save the Iraqis this time. Not to fuck them.

This wasn't a war against the people of Iraq, we were repeatedly told, it was a war to disarm Saddam Hussein of his WMDs....then it was a war to find Saddam's WMDs....then it was a war to bring order to Baghdad after mass rioting and looting and the first wave of IED attacks...then it was a war to catch Saddam....or his sons....and then it was a war to see justice served up on Saddam's snapped neck...and then it was a war to escort democratic elections under armed guards to the people of Iraq....then it was a war to pacify Fallujah, again...then it was a war to train Iraqi forces....then it was a war to fight Al Qaeda in Iraq...then it was a war to save democracy in Iraq by supporting the newly elected and thoroughly Iran-allied government
...then it was a war to secure the kind of peace that would allow large-scale troop withdrawals
...then it was a war that couldn't be stopped because it would make the Coalition of the Willing (Few) look weak to jihadists across the planet....

But it was never a war against the people of Iraq. Unless they were insurgents, or heavily armed and objected to 4am raids and a kicked in front door. Which was a lot of Iraqis. Or if they had been unemployed for six months and took $50 to dig holes for IEDs along American supply lines.
It wasn't "Fuck Iraq" this time, it was "Save The Iraqis". Those not trying to kill CoW(F) soldiers anyway, even though it was almost impossible to determine who was who in the ghettos of Baghdad, Basra and Fallujah.

John Howard committed Australian troops to the War On Iraq within days of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York City and Washington DC. As a witness to the attack on the Pentagon, Howard was right there in American capital during some of the most tumultuous days in American history. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were discussed before Howard left Washington DC and flew home.

The 'War On Terror', from its genesis, was never simply about finding and killing Osama Bin Laden and crushing Al Qaeda. It was always planned, and discussed, in the White House, in Downing Street, in Kirribilli House, as a war on terrorists and those who supported them, funded them, sheltered them. Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, North Korea and Pakistan were from day one viewed by the war's planners as future locations for combat or special operations to kill terrorists. Howard signed on.

John Howard allowed the Australian Defence Forces to start ramping up the numbers of Australian servicemen in the Gulf in mid-2002. Australia sent hundreds of soldiers and sailors to the Gulf in the last three months of 2002, many of whom knew that they were going there for a war, despite the evening news claiming Howard had still not made a decision.

For the three months before Australian and American rockets and missiles ploughed into Baghdad and other targets, in March 2003, Howard refused to confirm the common knowledge in Canberra, in news media editors offices, and shared amongst nearly every military family in the country, that he had told President Bush Australian troops were committed to fighting the War On Iraq, and that Australians were in the Gulf to fight the war.

Howard needed to lie about the fact that Australians and Americans were there to fight a war, regardless of what did or didn't happen in the United Nations Security Council, because so many Australians were opposed to it. When 1 in 20 Australians took to the streets of every major city in Australia to protest the coming War On Iraq, Howard and his supplicant media drones tried to vilify every single protester, including thousands of World War 2, Korea and Vietnam veterans, by claiming their opposition to the illegal use of military force was like giving comfort to Saddam Hussein. By March 2003, more than 70% of Australians were opposed to military action in Iraq.

Howard finally relented and confirmed Australian forces were committed to fighting the War On Iraq a few hours after the first missiles were fired. He then said Australians would be in Iraq "for months, not years" and then lied, or dodged, about the reasons for the war and why Australian soldiers could not come home for dozens of months more.

There's no doubt that Howard's refusal to listen to the will of the Australian people on Iraq played a factor in his humiliating defeat last November.

Howard knew by April-May 2007 that as far as the Australian Army was concerned, they'd done their duty in training up Iraqi police and security forces and keeping safe provinces in Southern Iraq. They were preparing to withdraw most of their combat forces, and start the long process of restocking and repairing and replacing gear, equipment, weapons and vehicles damaged or lost during the years of desert deployment. This decision was made months before Howard called the election. And he knew that. Howard couldn't force the Australian Army to stay in Iraq, and the decision had been made to withdraw.

So why didn't Howard come clean and tell the Australian people that if elected, he, like Rudd, would oversee the withdrawal of Australian combat troops from Iraq in mid-2008? And why did foreign minister Alexander Downer shout in Parliament that even thinking about "cutting and running" from Iraq was giving in to "the terrorists" when he already knew Australian troops were coming home?

Howard's bizarre refusal to confirm what the military, and military families in particular, along with various news media editors and thousands of public servants, already knew as a fact was a repeat of his scandalous behaviour at the start of the war.

His stubborness, his inability to come clean to the Australian people on the end of the Iraq War, as with its beginning, helped to lose him the election. It wasn't the only reason, but Howard's barely believable illusion-weaving throughout four years of war only encouraged Australians to wonder about his honesty when it came to other vital issues, like interest rates, like WorkChoices. Howard's hundreds of spin-filled, forced-empathy hollowed interviews about the Iraq War planted millions of seeds of doubt - we can't trust him on Iraq, so why should we trust him when he says we won't be worse off under IR changes?

The War On Iraq was not simply a heavy chain around Howard's neck, weighed down further by his man-love blushing over President Bush, it was a constant stream of bright sunlight, illuminating Howard's torturing of truth on numerous issues and exposing his inherent dishonesty.

History will record that Australia went to War On Iraq based on a concoction of outright lies, deception and selective use of downright dodgy intelligence, and all of it will indelibly stain Howard's place in the history books.

History will record that the Australian people's rejection of war in dealing with Iraq brought into the streets of our cities and towns the biggest mass-gatherings and protests ever seen.

History will also record that Australian special forces played a vital role in dissuading key Republican Guard majors and generals from backing Saddam Hussein, with suitcases full of cash, many weeks before the war officially began.

And history will record that Australian troops trained tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers and police personnel, helping to recruit former insurgents and militia men years before it became a policy of the American military to pay and train those who once tried to kill them.

And so we come to the official announcement that Australia's key military role in the War On Iraq has ended :

The chief of the Australian Defence Force has told a parliamentary committee it is time for Australian troops to leave Iraq.

The Federal Government has ordered Australian combat troops be withdrawn from Iraq by the middle of the year.

Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston says Iraqi forces have faced a number of challenges over the past 18 months and always come out on top without any major support from Australia.

"It's been a very pleasing outcome," he told a Senate estimates committee this morning.

"We have achieved our objectives in southern Iraq and frankly if you look at the two provinces, it's time to leave."

Air Chief Marshal Houston said Australia would still be engaged with Iraq through a broader program focused on training, including bringing members of the Iraqi forces to Australia.

"We will be providing training in Australia," he confirmed.

Houston confirms Australian troops would have pulled out of Iraq in 2008 even if John Howard won the election :

Air Chief Marshal Houston said both al-Muthanna and Dhi Qar provinces had been under Iraqi security control for almost two years.

"We have seen very pleasing results from the (Iraqi) security forces deployed in the two provinces," he said.

"They have had a number of security challenges over the months and they have come out on top without any support from us . . .

"When you look at the two provinces, it is time to leave."

Australia's withdrawal was likely to have happened even if the federal coalition had retained government at the last election, Air Chief Marshal Houston said

UPDATE : In an earlier ABC News report, the story claimed that "Australia sent troops into Iraq in March 2003 in support of the US push to overthrow dictator Saddam Hussein."

Even the notorious House Of Evil Lefties, according to the nuts and Bolts, has finally brought the new myth, and reported it as fact, that Australia joined the War On Iraq to overthrow Saddam.

But only for a few hours. Commenters pointed out that this was a complete lie, and that Australia went to War On Iraq to stop Saddam from firing his alleged WMDs into England within 45 minutes, or giving non-existent nuclear weapons to Osama Bin Laden.

Here's the ABC News corrected version of why we went to War On Iraq :

"Australian troops have been in Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003."

No reason at all is given now.

Latest chapter from the ED Day novel is online now. An excerpt :

He then asked Johnny how they were going to organise themselves when thousands of other survivors reached Sydney.

What exactly was Johnny's big plan to cope with that kind of crises? They can feed a few hundred people, but what if two thousand turn up on a cruise ship, all starving?

"Who are you talking about," he asked Bossbloke. "Who's coming here?"

Bossbloke answered, "...other survivors. People from towns and villages up and down the coast. All those people in the mountains, I saw the fires up there. You could have tens of thousands of survivors turning up here in the next six months. And we will have Army or militia roll back into into the city eventually. They were more prepared than most of the civilians….”

Bossbloke said he didn't know who and when, but he said it was inevitable that others would flock to Sydney, and if there were any surviving members of the state or federal government, or the Army or Navy, they too would return and they would have solid plans for how the new society would grow and flourish and be structured.

"It's been almost eight weeks," Johnny said, "no-one's come yet, mate."

"If we aren't organised," Bossbloke said, the impatience clear in his gruffness, "if we don't have our shit together, if we don't have community leaders, if we don't have structure to our society, then the outsiders will take over. They'll see that we're weak and disorganised, that we're as vulnerable as a little kid lost in the desert. They will crush us and take from us everything we've worked so hard for."

Go Here To Read The Latest Chapter From ED Day

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