"I've Met Osama 20 Times And He's Lovely"

David Hicks In His Own Words

In only a few days time, David Hicks, a convicted terrorist supporter, will be released from the Adelaide Prison where he has spent almost nine months, after being freed from five years of controversial detainment in Guantanamo Bay.

Saying that the detention of any Australian citizen, without charge, without trial, for five years by a foreign government was wrong doesn't mean you automatically supported the prisoner's views, or beliefs. But that argument was clearly too complex for the thin minority of Australians who praised former prime minister John Howard's decision for many years not to ask the US to send Hicks home, as he admitted he could have easily done. At any point during those five years.

Federal police believe Hicks still poses a threat to the Australian public and will monitor his movements through the use of a control order. This has been supported by the Rudd government, and has drawn only scant criticism from the vast number of Australians who previously opposed his detention in Guantanamo Bay. Which surely proves that they were not supporting David Hicks' views, actions or beliefs, but merely the fact that his detention was illegal and unjust.

John Howard moved quickly to get Hicks set free, earlier this year, when he realised that the scandal had already become an election issue. He cut a deal with US Vice President Dick Cheney, and Hicks found himself facing greatly reduced charges before the Gitmo military commission. Where one week prosecutors were confidently claiming he would be convicted of trying to kill American troops in Afghanistan, the next week he was preparing to come home after a plea deal that saw him only being charged with supporting terrorism. The military prosecutors were stunned and humiliated. You can thank Dick Cheney and John Howard for Hicks going down as a 'terrorist supporter' instead of something perhaps more applicable.

Below are excerpts from David Hicks letters home to his family from early 2000, to mid-2001. When Hicks wrote these letters, there was no official 'War On Terror' and there were no laws in Australia or the United States to convict foreigners for fighting against "Jews and Christians" in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

That these letters were not referred to more often in the media, to help explain why he was viewed by authorities as a possibly dangerous extremist who supported Osama Bin Laden's brand of terrorism, was an inexcusable failure.

David Hicks, in his own words :

Dear family I spent around three months in a muslim military training camp in the mountains.I learnt about weapons such as ballistic missiles, surface to surface and shoulder fired missiles, anti aircraft and anti-tank rockets, rapid fire heavy and light machine guns, pistols, AK47s, mines and explosives. After three months everybody leaves capable and war-ready being able to use all of these weapons capably and responsibly.

There is a very heavy war in the north (of Afghanistan) I have arranged to go to the front. Slowly I am becoming a well trained and practical soldier. As a muslim we believe in destiny that when it is my time then so be it. If it is my time that is called martyrdom I will always fight for Islam.

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

There is one thing I wish to explain about jihad the non-believers, Jews and Americans in the western world are determined to prevent it to come back again. Jihad is still valid today and will be for all time. The West is full of poison. The western society is controlled by the Jews with music, TV, houses, cars, free sex takes Muslims away from the true Islam keeps Islam week and in the third world.

Real jihad is possible just like before in the Prophets day where martyrs die with a smile on their faces and their bodies stay smelling of beautiful perfume for weeks after death.

The West lives in the dark in a narrow sort of living. Allah will use his servants to punish non-believers in this world.

As a Muslim young and fit my responsibility is to protect my brothers from aggressive non-believers and not let them destroy it.

One reward I get in being martyred I get to take ten members of my family to heaven who were destined for hell

But first I also must be martyred. We are all going to die one day so why not be martyred?

The only true Muslims are those fighting.

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

The Western World has mastered the art of propaganda global ignorance stresses me at times.

The Muslim world is ready for war but not the governments...It is exciting and promising but it is not the answer. The other governments are worried about losing their luxurious lifestyles and wont take serious action.

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

I have told you about the non-Muslims they send a lot of spies here especially to Osama Bin Ladens Arab organisation which is where I am.

I have met Osama bin Laden about 20 times he is a lovely brother the only reason the West call him the most wanted terrorist is because he got the money to take action.

If David Hicks ever agrees to, or is allowed to, be interviewed by the media, hopefully he will be questioned on whether or not he still holds many of the repellent views he expressed in these letters.


December 2006 : David Hicks - Unconvicted, Tortured, Broken

February 2007 : John Howard - I Can Free David Hicks AnyTime I Want, But I'm Not Going To

March 2007 : Hicks Admits To 'Backing' 9/11 Attacks In Plea Deal, Is Given Suspended Sentence

October 2007 : John Howard & Dick Cheney Cut A Deal To Release Hicks

Former Prime Minister On John Howard & George W. Bush's "Evil Purpose"

The David Hicks Hex & Mocking Phillip Ruddock

The 'Government Gazette' Becomes The 'Opposition Oracle'

We keep hearing how the new Liberal/National Opposition government is lost. They don't have a clue. They are "Me Tooing" the Rudd government, with their acceptance of the reality of climate change, the need to ratify Kyoto and that WorkChoices is about as popular as a rusty razor to the nipple being just a few of their "We're With You Guys!" whiplash-inducing policy turnarounds.

But before the Libs go out and blow much needed money hiring policy experts and advisors to shape their party platforms, they should just turn to the main op-ed page of The Australian today, where the editor is, once again, telling the Libs exactly what they need to do to win back the public support.

When the Libs were in government, The Australian was known in the blogstream as the 'Government Gazette' for its near ceaseless support of the Howard government and its constant hyping of utterly abysmal poll results for Howard & Friends. 'Howard Stages A Comeback' and all that.

Seeing as The Australian already looks like it will stick to helping the Liberal Party in every way that it can, it's time for a rebranding of the newspaper that "keeps the nation (and the Libs) informed". Forget the 'Government Gazette'. It's now the 'Opposition Oracle'.

As long as Nelson and the Libs do what they're told by the editor of Opposition Oracle, and its conservative-heavy op-ed writers, they can expect plenty of good press this year.

But only if they do what they're told.

So listen up Mr Nelson, the Opposition Oracle is speaking. Get out your highlighter pen and mark up Your Brand New Policy Platform For 2008-2010 :

In charting a course back to government, the Coalition leadership needs to...learn the lessons of recent history. They will not win power by fighting the centralist Rudd Government from the rigid Right, any more than the Labour Party in Britain was going to beat the Thatcher/Major Conservatives fighting from the rigid Left.

Rather than trapping itself in a time warp, the Opposition's job is to exploit the weaknesses in the Rudd Government's IR policies. Later in the election cycle, when the impact of the Government's changes are clearer, the Coalition should refine andrebadge its alternative and sell it positively as the way of the future.

Just as the genesis of New Labour's victory in Britain was the pragmatic dumping of sacred "white elephants" such as socialism and nationalisation of the means of production, Australia's Coalition needs to review some of its positions. Welfare reform is now long-standing and was central to theHawke/Keating governments as well as to the Coalition. It is no coincidence that single mothers were heavily over-represented in eight of the 10 seats in which the Coalition suffered its heaviest losses. This suggests that too many felt antagonised at being forced off welfare and into the workforce.

To be competitive, the Coalition must learn how to soften its sales pitch, using more encouragement and less of the big stick. And while the culture wars are of no interest to many in marginal seats, the Coalition could make ground by focusing on issues such as what is taught at school.

So the advice is : keep sticking it to single mothers and the poor, but don't be so obvious about it. You've got to find yourself some new punching bags, preferably ones that don't have a lot of voting power.

Labor campaigned cleverly on interest rates and petrol and grocery prices, which are largely beyond the control of any government.

But if the Rudd Government fails to meet voters' expectations in a worsening economic climate, the Coalition could argue that they were indeed more competent at steering Australia through challenging times, such as the Asian economic crisis.

In 1996, John Howard won by promising not a conservative revolution but to govern "for all of us" and to make Australians feel "relaxed and comfortable". He wooed the battlers by lifting their aspirations, just as Kevin Rudd did 11 years later. Such a strategy should also mean uniting disparate groups in the national interest, rather than playing the politics of division.

Translation : The Liberals should stop basing their policies on the hysterical opinions of Andrew Bolt and Piers Akerman (eg - Global Warming is an evil Green conspiracy), and realise that all the bitterness hacked up from their religiously committed commenters only represent the nuttier fringes of conservative Australia.

While playing the competing interests of one group off against another can appeal to particular constituencies in the short term, punters wise up over time and tend to reject such cynical politics.

Punters know that self-appointed extremist spokespeople-provocateurs for Australian conservatives, like Bolt (who regards Pinochet as a hero), are crazier than a burning cat dumped dumped into a bucket of ice water.

In its new role, the Coalition should understand why fighting on the fringes is no place for an alternative government.

Translation : The so-called 'Culture Wars' are a mind-numbingly tedious bust for most Australians, those that have actually heard of them, and nobody reads Quadrant, but the few that do are hardly representative of the Australian people as a whole, or even a broad slice of Australian conservatives.

Maybe the New Liberals could adopt an anti-globalisation platform, considering the globalised economy is one of the key reasons why our economy is getting hammered right now by the financial meltdown in the United States. Or fight with the unions against Labor as it stalls the winding back of WorkChoices. Or start demanding that Labor do more to embrace alternative energy. Now that would be interesting.

More Than 1200 East Timor Veterans Now Suffering PTSD

Almost one in ten Australian veterans of the East Timor conflict have sought out help to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder. It's a stunning figure, and is reflective of the horrors that many Australian servicepeople experienced during that deployment. Events that most Australians remain blissfully unaware of.

It's too early yet to know how high the PTSD numbers will be for Australian veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The last figure I heard was about 500, but PTSD has a nasty habit of taking more than three or five years, or a solid decade, to really kick in, therein making normal life next to insufferable.

More on this from the Sydney Morning Herald :

He served in Afghanistan for just six weeks, but it was enough time to see things that would haunt Andrew Paljakka long after his tour of duty ended.

He told of having witnessed an atrocity with a civilian victim, and of having to listen to the sounds of a man he had shot slowly dying.

After Captain Paljakka, 27, returned to Australia last year, he began drinking heavily and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress and severe depression. In February he was admitted to a private hospital, but discharged himself.

On February 26 he was found hanging from a bootlace in a cupboard in a Kings Cross hotel room. He left a young widow.

Captain Paljakka was the youngest army recruit ever to graduate as an officer from Duntroon Military College in Canberra. He went on to become a specialist weapons expert in the field of major explosives and their destruction.

He was based at the army's Explosives Ordinance Distribution Ammunitions Centre at Orchard Hills. His expertise in destroying unexploded bombs, bunker systems and booby traps led to his deployment in Afghanistan with an SAS group in April last year.

His suicide is the second to have occurred among troops who have returned from Afghanistan.

In May, a former SAS trooper, Geffry Gregg, took his life in Perth. He was a signalman, and had been among the first SAS soldiers deployed to Afghanistan. He had been involved in a bungled mission in which 11 civilians died and many were injured in an attack by Australian troops.

Mr Gregg's family were angry that the Defence Department did not try to find out why he missed psychiatric appointments in the nine months before he killed himself. He had been suffering from post-traumatic stress, and they said he was frustrated at having to deal with three different agencies.

In August, war veterans urged the Government to provide greater access to psychiatric treatment for former soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress, particularly those who had served in East Timor.

About 1200 claims for shell shock and post-traumatic stress from the 16,000 veterans of the East Timor peace-keeping operation have been filed with the Department of Veterans Affairs.

There have also been suicide attempts.

In August 2005, two years after being discharged from the navy after rising to the rank of lieutenant commander, David Buck, 53, a Timor veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress as a result of seeing machete-wielding mobs and hacked bodies, tried to get police to shoot him by staging a robbery at the Umina Bowling Club with a fake bomb. He hoped the police would kill him in the belief he was a terrorist.

Last year the District Court judge Michael Finnane, in deciding not to jail Mr Buck, described his case as tragic and bizarre, and a case of post-traumatic stress.

"He is a tragic and broken man who has been exposed in the course of the service in the navy to terrible events which it is hard for me to fully comprehend," Judge Finnane said.

In many cases it's not just hard, but downright impossible, for the friends and family of Australian war veterans to understand how the sound of a traffic helicopter, the backfire of a car or the cry of a distressed child can reduce the veteran to a quivering mess years, or even decades, after they've come home.

The Rudd government promised during the election to increase and ease up the avenues through which veterans can seek help to deal with PTSD. It's a promise they better keep, and keep expanding on, particularly if they are going to keep Australian combat troop in Afghanistan for another decade.

For far too many Australian veterans, the war doesn't end when they come home.

Australia's Driest City Comes Back From The Brink

Great news from Goulburn, as the rains fill the city's vastly depleted dam and the locals are freed from the harshest water restrictions faced by any city dwellers in Australia.

The dam was down to 14% capacity earlier in the year, but the rains began to fall in June and water restrictions started to be eased back in July. The rains have kept falling and now the Level Five Restrictions have been wound back to Level Three.

Goulburn's water restrictions became infamous when we learned that many showered surrounded by buckets to collect every splash, so they could try and keep their gardens and lawns alive.

But the ultra-tight water restrictions have had an interesting effect on Goulburnians. Even though they don't have to conserve every spare drop of water like they once did, the years of restrictions have ingrained a conservatism when it comes to water that will delay the day, if the regular rains fade away again, when they have to go back to Level Five once more.

Goulburnians are using less water than they did before the drought hit their city, and the water they do use, they are using more effectively :

For three years, Goulburn in southern NSW endured the tightest water restrictions in the country. But as rains continue to bring relief to swathes of eastern Australia, the town's dams are more than half full, kids are playing on the ovals again and the deputy mayor even has his vegetable garden growing again.

Under Level 5 restrictions, residents were allowed only 150litres a person a day, but they were so water conscious many cut their use to closer to 100 litres a person a day.

Under Level 3 restrictions, residents are allowed to water for an hour a day by hose, and there is no limit on watering cans.

Sally Nelson, from Goulburn's Gehl Garden Centre, said the business had had a good spring. Townspeople had stopped buying plants during the severe water restrictions, she said, but after the June rain they began to garden again, opting first for vegetable and annual flower seedlings.

Playing fields that were rock hard and closed at the height of the drought are now green and in use again. (The mayor) Mr Sullivan pointed out the local racecourse and soccer fields were being watered with recycled water, and there were plans to increase recycled water use on all sports fields.

Goulburn's water supplies are now at 60%. There were predictions earlier this year they would run out of water completely by May, 2008.

By the time the next drought arrives, if it actually does, Goulburn should have a new pipeline in place, but even then they won't use as much water as they did before the drought began in 2004.

These are lessons in water conservation that are, and have been learned, in towns and cities all over Australia in the past few years.

For the world's driest country, these are lessons we probably should have learned a long time ago.

July 2007 : The Skies Finally Open Over Australia's 'City Of Drought'

Brendan Nelson Hand Carves WorkChoices Tombstone

Radical New Liberal Policy : "We Are Listening To The Australian People"

What exactly are the Liberal Party going to be opposed to in opposition?

Apparently, the Brendan Nelson led Liberals have vowed to fight to ensure that the Labor Party lives up to promise to rollback the WorkChoices regime they forced onto the Australian people, against their will.

At a news conference with Deputy Leader Julie Bishop, Dr Nelson said the Coalition would now scrutinise the Rudd Labor Government's scrapping of the laws to ensure it was "implemented as stated''.

"We will be working very hard to make sure that the legislation the Labor Party and Mr Rudd present to the Australian Parliament is consistent with the last stated position of the Labor Party,'' he said.

Wow. who needs drugs? Just try and wrap your head around that. The Liberal Party is now going to "scrutinise" the Labor Party's windback of WorkChoices to make sure that they live up to their promise to get rid of the John Howard's biggest political ambition : utterly stripping away the most essential rights of Australian workers, destroying the unions, and handing control of Australia's workforce to the country's biggest corporations.

Nelson is basically saying : "We introduced it, now we're going to make sure that you really get rid of it."

Parliament next year will be hallucinogenic if this is any indication of how Monty Pythonesque the Liberal Party will be in opposition.

The rest of the story :

"We have listened and we have learned, and one of the issues that was very important to the Australian people in changing the Government on November 24 was that of WorkChoices," he said.

"We've listened to the Australian people, we respect the decisions they have made, and WorkChoices is dead."

Dr Nelson said the package of industrial reforms was "one of the reasons'' Australians voted to change the Government.

The Liberal Party insist they are now listening to the Australian people. Talk about a revolution. Actually listening to the majority collective opinion of the Australian people? WorkChoices was brought in because the Liberal Party had spent so long listening to the opinions and demands of Australia's business community.

So WorkChoices is dead. Well, that was a complete waste of another $700 or $800 million dollars.

How many hospitals and schools would that kind of money brought up to world's best standards?

Brendan Nelson is busy chipping away at a new tombstone today. The one that will mark the political grave of Australia's biggest champion of WorkChoices - Joe Hockey.

It's no exaggeration. John Howard really did destroy the Liberal Party.

Dry your eyes.

Australian Metal Band Loses Singer In Van Crash

UPDATE : There was much confusion in the media about which rock band was in the van that crashed earlier today in New South Wales. It is now being reported that the van belonged to Australian metal band The Red Shore, from Geelong, who were touring with US act All Shall Perish. The lead singer of The Red Shore, Damo, is now believed to have died in the accident.

From ABC News :

Melbourne death metal band's lead singer and merchandiser were killed when their mini-bus crashed on the Pacific Highway, north of Coffs Harbour, earlier today.

The Red Shore were on tour with US band All Shall Perish at the time of the accident.

Earlier reports claimed members of All Shall Perish were involved. But a spokeswoman for touring agency Destroy All Lines has confirmed the mini-bus was not carrying the US band.

The Red Shore's lead singer and merchandiser were killed when the driver of the mini-bus lost control of the vehicle near Moonee Beach and crashed into a tree at 7:00am AEDT.

The Red Shore's My Space is here. You can hear some of their songs at the top right of the MySpace page. Sounds like they carved.

Considering the amount of ks a van or bus tour of Australia wracks up, it really is amazing that there aren't more tragic tales of life on the rock road like this one.

McKew Farewells The "Brutishness" Of The Howard Era

At the launch of the book that chronicles her fight to overthrow John Howard's 33 year reign in Bennelong, Maxine McKew finally spoke her mind on the legacy of the man she removed from Australian politics :

"I think Paul Keating got it right...this election has wiped away the toxicity. People are smiling, a sort of sense of, we can get on and do things.

"And I think we all want to get on and do things in a certain way, in a civil way, in a sensible way, and get rid of perhaps I think that brutishness that has characterised our politics probably since 2001.

"A terrible thing happened then, but we all, we all have assembled here today, haven't we? And I think it's time to get rid of that horrible absolutism - because it's just not going to get us through the complex issues we need to solve."

The Liberals should be thanking McKew. They wanted to get rid of Howard, but they couldn't do it. Too scared, too gutless, too spineless. So they had to rely on a former ABC host and Labor candidate to do the job for them.

The Battle For Bennelong book was launched by Julian Morrow from The Chaser, who showed how easy it already is for comedians to rip the Rudd government, as they so enthusiastically shredded Howard & Friends :

The Arts Minister, Peter Garrett, he was going to be here today, he even penned a short jocular speech for the occasion. Unfortunately Penny Wong couldn't be here to deliver it, so …

Garrett is set to replace Alexander Downer as the most popular power figure for comedic mockery in Australian politics. At least until Alex Hawke gets a position of some power in the opposition, around the same time that Brendan Nelson gets ousted from the leadership.

10 Weeks Of Stockpiled Food Needed To Deal With "Inevitable" Bird Flu Pandemic

When The Supermarket Shelves Grow Bare, Where Will You Get Your Food?

By Darryl Mason

The massive floods in northern New South Wales and Queensland have led to hundreds of people being isolated in their homes, with only neighbours in boats and the occasional SES volunteers turning up with food and emergency supplies. Some farmers expect to be cut off by floodwaters for two or more weeks. Hundreds of roads and bridges have been washed away. The damage bill is expected to top more than $100 million.

While some of those affected by rapidly rising floodwaters are used to dealing with floods every few years, for most it was the worst flooding they'd seen in decades, and there was no advance warnings. Not everyone was prepared - that is, with food stockpiles and a few boxes of emergency essentials.

Some of the experts who have been planning for a bird flu pandemic in Australia use flood disaster models to explain what life will be like for millions of Australians when the "inevitable" bird flu pandemic begins.

Like those now trapped and cut off from the world by floodwaters, a full blown bird flu pandemic would see entire towns, huge stretches of suburbia, and cities, literally cut off.

Trucks delivering food to supermarkets and 7-11s will grow more infrequent as voluntary and mandatory quarantines kick in, electricity and water supplies will likely be effected and may cut off altogether as those responsible for maintaining infrastructure fall ill, stay home to care for sick relatives or simply refuse to turn up for work in fear of catching what would be an extremely lively and deadly virus.

I clearly remember laughing at the thought of stockpiling food and water when YK2 threatened to end civilisation as we know it. But last year, a few days worth of truck deliveries failed to turn up at the local supermarket (a smallish one) for a variety of reasons (illness, maintenance problems, industrial disputes) and it was chilling to see how quickly the shelves and fridges emptied, or thinned out.

Not just bread and milk, but things like jars of peanut butter, nappies, toilet paper, fruit juice. In less than six days with no deliveries, an old shelf stacker said, most of the stuff they sold would be gone and they'd shut up shop. And then what?

If the bird flu pandemic became real, if hundreds of thousands of Australians fell gravely ill, all at once, if there were quarantines, many Australians would find themselves in a similar position to those in northern NSW and QLD cut off by floodwaters.

Stockpiling food, water, batteries, and yes, toilet paper, doesn't seem like such a crazy idea anymore. In fact, we are likely to see a government sponsored, or at least government 'inspired' marketing push in the coming months to make the stockpiling of food and essentials something every Australian family should begin to do. You know, just in case.

From the Courier Mail :

Every Australian household should stockpile at least 10 weeks' worth of food rations to prepare for a deadly flu pandemic, a panel of leading nutritionists has warned.

World health experts now agree a pandemic is inevitable and will spread rapidly, wiping out up to 7.4 million people globally and triggering rapid food shortages.

....Woolworths and Coles, the nation's two major supermarket chains, will run out of stock within two to four weeks without a supply chain – or even faster if shoppers panic.

This has prompted a team of leading nutritionists and dietitians from the University of Sydney to compile "food lifeboat" guidelines to cover people's nutritional needs for at least 10 weeks.

Their advice – published in the Medical Journal of Australia – would allow citizens to stay inside their homes and avoid contact with infected people until a vaccine becomes available.

The lifeboat includes affordable long-life staples such as rice, biscuits, milk powder, Vegemite, canned tuna, chocolate, lentils, Milo and Weet-Bix.

Jennie Brand-Miller, professor of human nutrition at the University of Sydney and co-leader of the study, believes it is common sense to stockpile food before a pandemic strikes.

"It's really not a question of if: it's a question of when," she said.

"It will spread very rapidly just like flu does normally because it's a highly contagious organism, except this will be a really lethal one. What we suffer from is a false sense of security that someone else is looking after all this."

The short version is, as was made clear by BushCo. in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, don't rely on the government to come to your rescue when a pandemic, or another major disaster, hits. You're pretty well on your own.

And the better that you can take care of yourself and your family, and feed yourselves, the more likely you are to get through two months of quarantine without having to go and queue for hours in a local carpark with thousands of others, waiting for food and water.

What the story doesn't tell us is that most bird flu experts believe that if there is a pandemic, it is likely to come in 'waves', two or three, over a year or more, with each 'wave' lasting eight or ten weeks.

Life might get back to normal between each 'wave', which would mean you'd probably have to go out and build up the stockpile again.

More on all this from the Medical Journal of Australia :

• Influenza pandemics are a real risk and are best managed by self-isolation and social distancing to reduce the risk of infection and spread.

• Such isolation depends on availability of food of adequate quantity and quality.

• Australia has one of the most concentrated food supplies of any country, making rapid food depletion more likely in a crisis.

• Food stockpiling by both authorities and citizens is an important safety precaution that should be given greater media coverage.

In the event of a lethal pandemic, emergency measures such as closing schools, staying home with family and friends, and avoiding contact with other people (until all have been immunised) will be instrumental in avoiding infection.

The Australian Government and the Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC) have been planning for such a scenario for several years and have advanced plans in place

Australia has one of the most concentrated food supplies of any country, being dominated by two large supermarket chains. These organisations operate with such efficiency that their logistic chains hold only a few weeks’ supplies.

If the supply chain shuts down, or if there is no delivery from central stores, supermarkets’ stocks will be depleted within 2–4 weeks. If domestic stockpiling begins at this late stage, then depletion will be accelerated.

Food supplies in the home will need to last as long as it takes for vaccine development and production. For ordinary seasonal influenza vaccines, there is a lag of 6 months or more after a new virus strain has first been discovered until a new vaccine is available for distribution. For weather-related catastrophes, food stockpiles might be required for much longer.

A destabilised global climate, where small changes in atmospheric and ocean circulations have major consequences for temperature, rainfall, wind and storm patterns, may precipitate food stockpile dependence for several years.

While long-term food stockpiling could be considered a governmental responsibility, we suggest that home stockpiling of food to last about 3 months might be done by individual households. This would allow a window of time for governments to put emergency action plans and food deliveries in place.

The MJA has a detailed list of what foods, and in what quantities, they recommend you stockpile for emergencies here.

The idea isn't that you rush out and rack up $500 on your credit car tomorrow filling the spare room, or the space under the stairs, with 40 jars of Vegemite and 20 kilos of powdered milk.

The way I've been building my stockpile is to simply toss in a few extra cans of soup or baked beans or an extra jar of peanut butter, each time I do a shop. Considering the variety of canned and dried and 'ready-to-eat' meals that crowd our supermarket shelves, you can actually put together a pretty damn tasty stockpile, most of which will last months, or years, beyond the 'use-by-date'.

You can also expect to see lots of stories in the coming months about the benefits of planting herbs, vegetables and fruit trees around the family home, or on the balcony if you're an apartment dweller. Very little of the vegetables and fruit that you see for sale in supermarkets in Sydney, for example, are actually grown locally. In a pandemic scenario, the fresh fruit and vegetables will, obviously, run out much quicker than just about everything else on the supermarket shelves.

Short of wheat and corn, you can grow a wide variety of herbs, fruits and vegetables in even the smallest suburban backyard, and on apartment balconies, if you plan your garden efficiently.

You can get by on canned carrots for months, if you were forced to, but ripping a handful of fresh carrots from an old metal tub on the balcony is going to feel extra special if you can't go up the road and buy them.

Opening a cupboard and seeing three months worth of stockpiled food and water is still pretty weird. But it's also remarkably reassuring, and satisfying. Just remember to buy a couple of spare can openers.

Regardless of whether or not a pandemic hits, you're going to save money in the next year or two on what you buy and stockpile, or plant, now. Food from the supermarket is only going to grow more expensive in 2008 and 2009. If widespread food shortages hit, a three month food stockpile is going to seem like a very worthy investment, indeed.

What Scares Australian Children?

Spiders, Monsters, Bullying, Being Hit By A Car

Interesting results from a study on what really scares the children of Australia. Climate change and terrorism don't rate very high. This is why four year olds are not allowed to vote. If they did, you'd have the prime minister out there campaigning on how he/she is going to deal with the "threat of monsters" :

Children are more scared of spiders, monsters and being in the dark than terrorism or war, research shows.

When asked what scares them, a survey of 220 Australian children put animals, bullying and getting hurt ahead of war or natural disasters. Only three mentioned terrorism.

Being lost and The Dark were the most common answers for one third of six to twelve year olds.

Second most cited general fears were of snakes, spiders, dogs. Being hit by a car, death, injury, the school principal and bullying also ranked high.

More boys than girls were fearful of The Dark, or of being lost. More girls were scared of animals and injury. Being unable to breathe also scored highly for boys and girls.

Younger children are more likely to be concerned about monsters, with 26 kids listing them as their greatest fear.

The researchers concluded that for children, the most common fears had "remained very stable over the past 25 years."

Melbourne Zoo's invertebrate specialist Patrick Honan said children should be cautious about approaching animals they don't know.

"People do get bitten by snakes and dogs, but generally when they are touching them or, in the case of snakes, trying to kill them," he said.

"But there is no logic to the fear of spiders. Spiders and people coexist very happily."

When I was a little kid, I had a bastard of a teacher tell my class that we shouldn't be afraid of spiders and cockroaches, because they crawled over our faces all the time when we were asleep anyway, particularly in winter, when they were attracted by the heat of human breath.

No kid in that class slept well that night, or any night for the next week or two.

I can still vividly remember a young friend telling me he had started sleeping with his head inside the pillow case. Why? Because he woke up in the middle of the night and there were all these tiny little hairs in his mouth. The same kind of tiny little hairs that might have fallen off the long, spindly legs of a very big spider. Brrrrrrrrrr.

Revelations On A Rooftop

From the online novel ED Day, about life in Sydney after the bird flu pandemic :

There was no moon, and with no huge glow of city lights, the star field seemed to be suspended just out of reach. Bright pure pindots of light, planets flashing colours, the occasional satellite blinking past.

The dogs were quiet last night. We could hear the dolphins in the harbour chattering away to each other. It seems like such a normal sound of this city now.

This is it then, I thought, this is how my new life really begins, in this new society in this new world after ED Day, it begins here, with Kat, kissing her under falling stars on the rooftop of the Imperium, in Dead Sydney.

One day, I said to myself, years from now, I will look back at this moment as the punctuation mark to when my old life ended and my new life began. Everything that happened between ED Day and now was just preamble, the prologue, this was the new start. With Kat, this was my new life.

I had to tell her. I knew it was too soon, but it felt like it was going to be the right thing to say...

I felt the words, I could taste them in my mouth, like I could taste the wine and chocolate on Kat's breath. I had felt this way for weeks now. I was sure she felt this way, too. How could it be too soon when we had both lost so much?

We needed to hear each other say this.

Go Here To Read The Latest Chapter From ED Day

Go Here To Read ED Day From The Beginning

Howard's Final Betrayal

Try explaining the meaning of "non core promises" "caretaker period" and "election commitments" to a kid concerned about the fate of endangered orangutans in Sumatra and Borneo.

During the election campaign, Howard promised the kid he would help save the orangutans. Now the kid has been told Howard's bitterly cynical election stunt was meaningless :

The father of a Sydney boy with cerebral palsy claims his son was used for an election stunt by former prime minister John Howard.

Mr Howard paid a visit to the Terrey Hills home of 11-year-old Daniel Clarke on November 5, in the midst of the election campaign, to announce funds to save endangered orang-utans...

Daniel's father, Rodney Clarke, 40, said he has now been informed the $200,000 is no longer going ahead because it was an election promise.

"The prime minister looked into my son's eyes and made him a promise," he said.

"Daniel had worked so hard and faithfully to make a difference and at no time did the prime minister indicate that this commitment would be an election promise.

"My wife and I raise our children on values in which your word is your bond, which made it particularly difficult for us to explain the prime minister's actions to Daniel."

A letter from Malcolm Turnbull, dated November 9, confirms the funding and does not specify it as an election promise. It reads: "I am delighted to advise that the Australian Government has agreed to provide funding of $200,000 in 2007/08 to the Australian Orang-utan Project (AOP) to continue the valuable work of the orang-utan protection units."

Heritage Strategy Branch assistant secretary Greg Terrill withdrew the funding commitment in an email.

Turnbull's names on the letter saying funding had been agreed to, so why shouldn't he and Howard reach into their pockets to keep the promise made to Daniel?

Howard, of course, made sure the media was with him when he went to see Daniel Clarke and made his promise of funding to help save the orangutans. The media pit stop resulted in literally hundreds of newspaper stories, radio and television reports.

The bastards. They didn't even have the guts to send someone to see the kid face to face and explain what had happened.

That's downright cold.

Dogs Drag Drowning Boy Out Of Dam

How can anyone say that dogs are any less smart, or brave, than the average human being?

The dogs, a rottweiler cross and a Staffordshire terrier named Muck and Tank, were today praised by the animal welfare group after they dragged their two-year-old owner from the dam on a property near Mackay, on the central Queensland coast.

Police said the dogs' heroic actions were discovered when the Andergrove property owner heard a noise and found the boy and his dogs on the embankment of her dam about 11am (AEST) yesterday.

The boy was covered in mud, had marks on his upper arms, and there were drag marks from his body in the mud, consistent with the dogs pulling him from the water.

Police said the boy had wandered from his home to a nearby property, and his dogs had followed.

Give the dogs bravery medals by all means, but why not the free run of a butcher shop as well for, say, half an hour?

The dogs' owner should get a medal as well for the best dog name of the year : Muck!

Australia Loses Half Its Wheat Crop To Drought



How would Australians cope if such a staple food source as bread rose to $8 or $10 a loaf?

I'm not talking a handmade rye sourdough, but your basic white or wholemeal loaf of bread. With warnings of further inflation to come, and the stunning news that Australia's projected wheat crops for 2007 are down by almost 50%, a $10 loaf of bread might not be such an unthinkable reality in a few years time. If the drought continues, and there's not many climatologists or scientists out there claiming its going to end any time soon. In fact, it's more than likely to get worse.

The problem with wheat shortages, or vastly more expensive wheat, is how those costs soak into the price of nearly everything in your fridge, from milk, yogurt and ice cream, to steak and eggs.

More here :

Wheat is a hardy plant. But without essential follow-up rains the crops were devastated. The country's official forecaster has now slashed the year's wheat production from the 22.5 million tonnes projected in June to 12.7 million tonnes.

In a further blow to farmers, the optimistic start to the season meant many sold their projected wheat crops on the futures market for the security of a fixed price.

When the crops failed, they were left without the means to pay back the advance. To make matters worse, they have to repay it based on the current wheat price, which has skyrocketed given global shortages.

"There are blokes that owe a million bucks and they've got no crops," Duncan Lander said.

The wheat price advance deal discussed above is stunning, and clearly someone is making huge profits off it, but it's not the Australian farmers.

Here's how it works. Say you're a wheat farmer who did it tough last year, and the year before, after years of drought and huge financial losses. Your family's under pressure, your mates are taking their own lives and your local town is breaking apart as more and more people walk off their farms, sell up and head to the cities, or to the mines, to find work.

Earlier this year, you get some rain, and there's talk that there will be more rain to come. Probably.

You take the gamble. You'll give your wheat farm one more season. You decide to sell the wheat crop you're about to put in for, say, $260 a tonne. You score an advance on that crop, at $260 a tonne. You'll owe the bank, or an international wheat broker, a decent amount when you harvest that crop, with all the interest, but you figure you'll make some money. You might not get too far head of the debts from the previous three or five years worth of losses, but it will be a step back onto the road towards something close to prosperity.

You get the advance, you put the crop in, the rain keeps falling, your fields start to turn green. There's money coming in from the government as well, to help people cope with 'The Rural Crisis', so you start thinking about buying that new farming equipment you should have brought a few years back.When you drive to the bank to talk about about a loan for new machinery, the roads are flooded. You laugh.

But then, a few weeks after you walked through those green fields of young wheat, the rain stops falling. The heat hits. In ten days your crop is dead.

But there is still more pain to come, because the wheat crop failures, and shortages, are now worldwide. So the price per tonne is rising, as the second half of 2007 unfolds. $280 a tonne. $320 a tonne. $360 a tonne. $400 a tonne.

You don't have a crop, so you can't cash in on a 12 month 40% increase in the price of wheat anyway. If you'd been flush, or flush enough, and not needed to borrow so big, and if you'd put that crop in and if the rains had kept falling...if, if, if...

But you don't have a crop and now have to pay out that loan. That $260 a tonne advance for a crop now worth $400 a tonne. You know farmers in other states who put in crops and got the rain they needed. But like you, they pre-sold their wheat crops for $260 a tonne. They harvested their crop, they sold it, but they didn't get rich. They barely broke even. But the international broker who lent them the money made $140 a tonne profit in just a few months.

Mind-boggling.

Between 50% and 60% of all the land in Australia that was farmed for food - for wheat, for sugar, for fruit, for vegetables - in the late 1990s is now ravaged by drought. Wheat crops died, and now fruit trees are being bulldozed because no rain means those farmers can't afford to pay the increased prices for water access.

It's mind-boggling to even think about, let alone live. Which is why so many people in Australia's cities have such a hard time getting their heads around what is going on 'out there.' There are more farmers blowing their brains out in their sheds today than there are leaning on a fence, tilting back their hat and admiring the sunset.

What happens to a country when half of its primary food production capability is lost?

What happens when it loses 70% or 80%?

The drought continues...

Drought Causing Long Term Price Rises For Food

January 2007 : Monster Floods Bring Smiles To Drought Devastated Country Towns

Australian Anti-Terror Official 'Attacked' By Undercover Police In Indonesia

This story is about two weeks old, but there's some interesting differences between how the story was originally reported, and then later 'corrected'.

Here's a report from November 29 from the Associated Press, which appeared in The Age :

Police are investigating an armed attack on the Australian head of an anti-terrorism school in Indonesia.

Lester Cross, director of the Jakarta Centre for Law Enforcement Cooperation, was unharmed when three men riding motorcycles fired at his car on Sunday after he refused to stop, local police chief Doddy Sumantyawan said.

They hit his bulletproof window and a tyre, but caused little significant damage, he said.

"We strongly believe it was an attempt of violent robbery," Sumantyawan said, adding that Cross was with his family when the attack occurred in the Central Java city of Semarang.

Nine days later, on December 7, the story changes dramatically, in this report from the Australian Associated Press :

An Australian Federal Police agent shot at last week was attacked by Indonesian police, authorities in Java have revealed.

Lester Cross, the head of a joint Indonesia-Australia anti-terrorism school in central Java, was not injured when his vehicle was shot at on November 25.

Central Java police chief Dodi Sumantyawan today said the shots were fired by Indonesian drug squad officers, who mistakenly thought Cross was dealing drugs.

Four Indonesian police officers fired on the vehicle after receiving a tip off a drug dealer was in the area, he said.

The police had seen the driver of Cross' vehicle stop and speak to someone, and believed it may have been the drug vehicle.

When the car started to move again, the police fired three warning shots, and then shot in the direction of the vehicle twice.

Cross and his family had been on the way to a friend's wedding, when they stopped and asked a passer by for directions.

And there's this version, which also appeared on December 7, from the Associated Press :

Undercover officers opened fire on a bulletproof vehicle carrying the Australian head of an anti-terrorism school in Indonesia after mistaking him for a drug trafficker, police said Friday.

Four police officers, acting on a tip from an arrested drug dealer, had been lying in wait for a vehicle believed to be carrying narcotics, Central Java police chief Maj. Gen. Doddy Sumantyawan said.

Police initially said they believed the attackers were robbers or terrorists.

"It was a big mistake by our members, who were not aware Cross was inside the car," Sumantyawan told reporters. "I met Cross to apologize and he fully understands that it was an accident."

So what happened to the guys on motorcycles who supposedly carried out the shooting? Three guys on motorcycles pull up alongside a car carrying an anti-terror official and open fire. No wait, it was undercover police, lying in wait, who opened fire on the vehicle.

It sounds like an attempted assassination.

But then, if that's what it actually was, you can understand why they'd want to bury the story. Or least change 'the facts' a few times to add to the confusion.

The story doesn't appear to have been mentioned in any media since December 7.

It should be noted that both of the very different version of events came from the same Central Java police chief.

Australia Will Send Navy, Air Force After Japanese Whalers

Some forty years ago, tourists used to descend on Byron Bay to watch Australian whalers haul their massive catch onto the shore and then carve the mammals up.

Now tourists descend on Byron Bay to watch the whales swim serenely by, with more protection afforded to them than many Australian children.

The Rudd government is so serious about its promise to protect whales from Japanese harpoons while they're in Australian waters that they're now preparing to deploy the navy and air force :

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will announce details next week, but said the military could be used to gather damning evidence against Japanese harpooners.

He said his Government took seriously Australia's international obligations to protect whales from unauthorised killing and would look at measures to fortify any future case to be brought before international legal tribunals.

Japan does not recognise a huge whale sanctuary Australia has declared in the Southern Ocean.

This is not simply an issue of morality, or whale rights. Nor is it a cynical move by the Rudd government to keep happy the millions of Australians who are disgusted by the annual slaughter of whales by the Japanese.

Whale spotting, that is whale tourism, is now worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the Australian tourist economy. It is a boom industry, and the more whales Japanese harpooners kill, the less will will make their way along Australia's coastlines, delighting boatloads full of tourists.

Fossil Record Confirms Ancient Dreamtime Legend Of 'Galloping' Kangaroo



For thousands of generations, Aborigines have passed down the story of how kangaroos that once ran on four legs were 'cursed' to hop along instead.

Now scientific research confirms that the ancient Dreamtime legend of Bohra was, in fact, true :

The dreamtime story of Bohra the kangaroo says the animal once ran like a dog before it was punished for joining a corroboree and forced to hop for eternity.

Researchers at the University of New South Wales say they now believe a dog-like skeleton, found in north-west Queensland, is from an extinct kangaroo species that once galloped rather than hopped.

Indigenous expert Michael Connolly says he has no doubt Aboriginal people were around to see the species.

"The Aboriginal people were always here, as far back in time as people can [say]," he said.

Mr Connolly says his ancestors used the dreamtime story over thousands of generations to record the animal in history.

"The Aboriginals had no books, so it was always by ear and by mouth and by art. These stories were told and passed down from generation to generation, so that was our storyline, that was our Bible that was everything," he said.

You Can Read A Story Of Bohra The Kangaroo Here

More Stories From The Dreaming Can Be Watched And Heard Here

Howard Finally Concedes Defeat

How Maxine McKew Won Her History-Making, Victory In The Battle For Bennelong


An excerpt from a photo by Brendan Esposito. Full image is here.

He waited as long as he possibly could to concede defeat, but former prime minister John Howard has finally turned up to congratulate Maxine McKew for winning the seat he had held for more than three decades. So much for McKew winning a "narrow victory." She romped home, scoring some 2400 more votes than Howard.

In the wake of the history-making election win by Kevin Rudd's Labor government, the stunning victory of former journalist Maxine McKew over John Howard in Bennelong has quickly faded from the headlines. To Howard's chagrin, however, it will feature prominently in every book written about the 2007 Election, and every biography to come of the former prime minister.

Maxine McKew quit her gig as the host of ABC's Lateline barely 12 months ago, and managed to defy history, and the mocking of Howard lackeys, to win the seat that Howard was supposedly going to own until his retirement.

The story of how McKew pulled off her amazing victory is already legendary in Labor circles, and is being studied intensively by Liberals, who still can't believe she actually did it.

A new book, The Battle For Bennelong by Margot Saville, explains how McKew and the Labor Party pulled off their history making, and history defining, victory :

...it was due largely to a clinical targeting of Bennelong's above-average number of non-English-speaking, foreign-born and predominantly Asian voters.

McKew and her minders did not want want the usual suspects among the legion of volunteers who offered their services. "Very early on her volunteers were carefully screened to remove all rude, aggressive Howard-hating types," Saville writes.

McKew's campaign, like Rudd's, was methodical and positive.

Labor headquarters sent into action a "crack team" of "Chinese- and Korean-speaking twentysomethings" to liaise with the Asian communities. Saville told the Herald the operatives were groomed through the Young Labor movement and worked the party's Electrac data system incessantly to target Asian voters with emails and visits.

McKew's campaign office secured a phone number that ended in 888 because many Chinese believe 8 to be a lucky number.

Thousands of how-to-vote guides in Chinese and Korean were printed and delivered, as were testimonials from prominent members of the Asian community.

Rudd's own affinity with China, evidenced by his command of Mandarin, was pivotal, as was Howard's earlier attitude to Pauline Hanson's One Nation and his controversial 1988 comments on Asian immigration.

On the last day of the campaign, (Chinese language newspaper) Sing Tao's front page carried the story of the race-hate pamphlet scandal in the seat of Lindsay. Next to it was a story mentioning Howard's 1988 comments.

Go Here For The Full Story

Howard knew the Lindsay pamphlet scandal was going to finish him off in Bennelong. That's why he got on the phone himself to try and stop the Tony Abbott approved spin that the pamphlet was nothing more than a "Chaser-style prank" from reaching the media.

But Howard failed, and the absurd claim that the virulently inflammatory pamphlet was but a joke guaranteed the scandal's place as the lead news story for the last two days before the election, and a front page position on nearly every newspaper in the country.

A fitting end indeed for a prime minister who knowingly, and enthusiastically, stirred up race hate throughout his political career, and did it with a knowing smile.

A chunk of a much larger, and more spectacular, piece of digital art from Cream Studios.

Go Here For The Full Image

Another Page Of Excellent Digital Art And Art Advertising From Cream Studios


Cream Studios also contributed art to a collection depicting events from the Bible, as they might have been viewed had Google Earth been around two to eight thousand years ago. You can see those images here.

Bloodnut Runs The Country



Today, a tiny, long mocked, down trodden, disrespected minority of Australians will be celebrating that one of their own has ascended to the heights of acting prime minister. No, not women. Redheads. The most cursed of all humanity's bizarre evolutionary mutations.

Deputy prime minister, Julia Gillard, is now acting prime minister while Kevin Rudd is in Bali emitting about emissions. She rules the land until Thursday night :

"I think it's probably a moment that many Australian women will probably stop and reflect on...I think if there's one girl who looks at the TV screen over the the next few days and says 'I might like to do that in the future', well that's a good thing."

Australian politics needs more Julia Gillards and less Tony Abbotts.

Annabel Crabb celebrates a victory for Australian women, and redheads :

It's a brief luxuriation in the seat of power that will top off what has undoubtedly been an incredible year for the Member for Lalor.

After all, it is only six years ago that Julia Gillard was a little-known bit player in Labor's dispirited opposition, a red-headed backbencher with a penchant for loud suits and a voice that would strip the enamel off a refrigerator.

She readily lampoons her own paltry housekeeping skills, and confesses privately that her polished wooden dining table has never been the same since she tried to spruce it up with oven cleaner in 2003.

And her favourite thing about the Australian people, she says, is their larrikin sense of humour.

"I was standing out at a street stall in my own electorate on one very windy winter's morning, and when you're campaigning at a street stall you stand next to a corflute sign of yourself, you know - a big poster of yourself.

"And so there I am, windswept and looking a bit bedraggled, and this old bloke comes out of the supermarket, and he looks at me and looks at the sign, and looks at me and looks at the sign, and then finally says: "Taken on a good day, wasn't it, love?"

Ladies and gentlemen, for 2 days only: The acting Prime Minister.

According to the rabid right of the commentariat, Julia Gillard should now be sacking Rudd and installing union thugs in every position of power across the land. Didn't they spend millions of dollars of your money warning us that Gillard was only one empty fruit bowl away from Red China Communism? Didn't they spend most of the year telling us how Gillard wouldn't even wait until Christmas before she sank the knives into Rudd's back, staged a coup and began transforming Australia into a socialist utopia?

Surely, the demented right couldn't have been so wrong? They're usually so bang on the money. The Iraq War. Climate Change. Dr Haneef is a crazed terrorist. The economy will be the election maker and breaker...

Oh, that's right. Gillard was only Chairman Mao and Karl Marx's secret hybrid clone child until all those union thugs stormed the Liberal Party bastille and staked the black heart of Howard in the November 24 election.

Now, the demented right can't find enough positive words to praise Julia Gillard.

Here is but one example, the Herald Sun's dribbling Andrew Bolt :

...her discipline, her very polished projection...warm, principled and human...Gillard will be PM.

What was that about a "conga line of suckholes?"

You need no more proof that the John Howard era of 'boys club' politics is dead and buried than to see Julia Gillard in charge of Australia. Briefly, but deservedly so.

Paris Hilton Has Sex With Britney Spears While Levitating Outside The White House After Bigfoot Found Dead Following Roswell Alien Confession

News.com.au claims it has an extraordinary 250,00 or so unique daily visitors, which is more than the Drudge Report (who presents every page load as a 'visit'). The vast majority of news.com.au readers are Australians, and Australians living overseas, so it's fascinating to see what stories were the most popular of the year.

Sex and violence rules. New prime minister Kevin Rudd was obviously far more interesting to readers than boring old John Howard. The Iraq War capture no headlines in the Top 100, but American gun massacres and natural disasters and mass death events were as popular as any other year.

A thorough perusal of the list shows that while Sex Still Sells, merely the words "found dead" in a headline is worth a big audience, even better if it's a celebrity that's been "found dead", like Anna Nicole Smith.

Australians clearly love the celebrity pap, but they like their weird stories as well, with headlines about Bigfoot and Roswell aliens powering into the Top 20.

Here's the Top Ten most visited News.com.au stories of the year :

10. Spoiler : how Harry Potter ends

9. Treeman has experts baffled

8. Chihuahua puppy born with loveheart pattern in fur

7. Singing salesman makes Cowell’s jaw drop

6. Roswell aliens theory revived by deathbed confession

5. Man levitates outside the Whitehouse

4. Britney attempted rehab suicide

3. 15-year-old girl jailed with 20 men

2. Federal Election “Vote-a-matic”

1.Paris Hilton loses inheritance


My personal favourites for just the headlines alone :

Man murdered parents with axe for laughing at cat’s death

Sex with robots not far away

Men to be spanked in new town

Crocodile vet speaks about having arm bitten off