Hunter S. Thompson's Fear & Loathing Down Under

In 1976, the great American writer Hunter S. Thompson, came to Australia for a lecture tour. This story promoting the new Thompson documentary, Gonzo, tells a few tales about the good doctor's Australian experiences :

...Peter Olszewski, who back in 1976 was "manager" of Thompson's often disaster-prone Australian lecture tour, says he was surprised by how "writerly" the Kentucky-born Thompson was.

"He worked on every word," Olszewski remembers.

"He told me how he wrote Las Vegas — what was true about the book and what was fiction — and that he set out to write an American classic, and even that admission gives the measure of the man.

"He deduced that most US classics were short books and he told me that if I did a word count on Las Vegas and The Great Gatsby, I would discover that the two were identical in word count, down to the last word."

...Thompson's...notorious smoking-drinking-swearing appearance on The Don Lane Show, but after a thorough search "in the bowels of Channel Nine's archives" (the documentary makers) discovered that all footage had been lost or destroyed.

Olszewski remembers it well. "This just confirmed the stupidity, crassness and ineptness of commercial TV producers at that time," he says.

"Rather than let Hunter the talent present himself as himself, the producer pushed him into appearing like a poseur, with coat casually draped over one shoulder. It looked so fake that when Thompson saw himself in the monitor he swore and brushed the coat aside, and of course the expletive was not deleted and it became a quite large story the next day in the morning papers."

I can still vividly remember Thompson's appearance on The Don Lane Show. He didn't brush that jacket off his shoulder, he violently jerked in his seat when he saw that he looked like a dick, and shouted something like "Get this fucking thing off me!" Don Lane's mouth fell open, a perfect O.

It's amazing to me now to think how incredibly controversial it was back then for someone to swear on live TV, particularly a loud, drunk American, and how impressive his performance was to a seven year old, already writing short stories, who didn't know that writers could be so outrageous, free, and wild.

Olszewski, who as J.J. McRoach stood for the Senate as an Australian Marijuana Party candidate, wrote about his often nightmarish job minding Thompson in Mandraxed Wombats and The Monster in Room 450, which was published in his 1979 book A Dozen Dopey Yarns.

His worst moment came when he "disobeyed the doctor's instructions" and swallowed a small piece of powerful blotter-paper LSD.

"Several hours later, after I had crashed a Fairlane into a concrete pillar in the car park under the Southern Cross Hotel, Thompson admonished me with, 'I clearly told you to chew it slowly'," he recalls.

Olszewski remembers (Hunter) on stage at the Melbourne Town Hall. "People weren't all that interested in meaningful discourse — they wanted gonzo madness. At one stage he turned to me and said, 'Help me in this thing. I feel trapped. I feel like a goddamned animal in a cage with people poking sticks at me.' "

Hunter S. Thompson never seemed to lose that feeling that he was a sideshow, that his notoriety, the Dr Gonzo character he created, consumed him and trapped him, as a person and as a writer. His widow recently said that his celebrity, the unreality of the rampaging Hunter myth versus the old, near crippled man that he actually was, added to the reasons why he shot himself in the head in February, 2005.

You Are Being Offended. Yes, I'm Being Offended

For its inflight internet access, Qantas knows what its customers find offensive, without even asking them :

"Restrictions may include sites that contain violence, profanity, nudity and other content we consider may be offensive to our customers."

No profanity? Well you fucking well won't be reading this blog on a fucking Qantas flight then, will you? I'm working on the violence and nudity.

It's Still Terrorism, But Without The Shocking Video

By Darryl Mason

Australia is under attack, PM Kevin Rudd, tells us, by the forces "of extremist capitalism." After Thursday's stock market blood-drainer, these forces seem to be winning. Or at least, what they set into motion is still wreaking incredible damage to the Australian economy.

How much has the stock market lost in the past year? A few hundred billion? Al Qaeda nuking Adelaide would have cost the economy less. So who is the greater threat? Al Qaeda kills people in the vicinity of the bombs they explode. Financial terrorists shred shrapnel into everybody.

We supposedly know who Al Qaeda are, or at least some of them, the few who can bother to front up in front of a webcam every few months, and the various leaders who we keep killing, over and over again.

But what about these "extremist capitalists"? Who are these financial terrorists?

Can we have some names, please? Are there ten of them? Or a few hundred? What do we know about their sleeper cells? What is their ideology of hatred? Why do they hate our values of a fair go and rewards for hard work so very, very much? Will they be held to account for what they've set into motion? Why aren't any of these financial terrorists being arrested? Why aren't we seeing them being hauled in and out of police stations in shackles? Will they be waterboarded to get at the truth? And why will so many of them get to keep their jobs, even if on greatly reduced pay?

The financial terrorists who are gutting the savings, investments and retirements of millions of Australians seem, today at least, to be even more illusory than Al Qaeda. One enemy lives in caves and poverty-smashed villages in the middle of fuck-all nowhere. The other extremist enemies live amongst us, they fly over our traffic choked streets in helicopters for their daily commute, and they live in most of their same pre-The Great Fucktober Crash Of 08 splendour. Well, that's not completely true. Some of these nation-shattering extremists have already headed off for calmer waters in the 80 foot floating palaces they built from the fleecing of thousands of work-haggered 65 year olds, who are now contemplating another decade of unexpected labour, or battling with a rising tide of unemployed youth for fewer and fewer jobs.

It's all but too late now, but where was that Financial Terrorism Hotline, so those that knew could have anonymously dobbed all those fuckers in?

In a stunning week of actual non-boring financial news, it was also remarkable to see just how much money an Australian government can make available in a time of "national emergency". More than $10 billion to the people, before Christmas. With a commitment to prop up banks and institutions that could soar into the hundreds of billions.

Ten billion dollars, thwomp, slammed down on the table, to save the Christmas spending season from expected disaster.

But do you know any pensioners or families planning to rush out and blow their government mini-bailout on Christmas presents?

There is definitely a mood of "thanks, but that'll go to pay off some debts" instead. Shopping malls around Australia are emptying of customers, and soon, staff, as people quickly begin to realise just what they can actually live without.

Paying off debts before guilt-induced holiday consuming is never a bad decision, but if the point of throwing around ten billion in cash is to get the people back into line at the checkouts, it doesn't seem likely it will pay off. Even if most people take their fresh cash to their local megacentre, it will only delay the inevitable mass layoffs of Generation Y staff for a month or two more.

Most elderly pensioners won't be splurging but will probably be remembering the once easily dismissed warnings from Depression-era grandparents and will be stockpiling long life food, or ripping out the ornamentals and laying in vegetables for next year. Just in case.

You might want to take up veggie and herb growing as a hobby, very soon. You know, just in case. My local supermarket in Sydney put up a big stand of vegetable and herb seeds a couple of weeks ago, after months of requests from locals. They couldn't re-stock that display fast enough. They've now sold out of just about everything, with a few days delay in getting more seeds, or maybe a week.

I found the seeds I wanted in the next suburb. But still, it was a strange experience to go to a local shop to buy more seeds, and find they've run out. Another sign of these unnerving times.

And here's an excellent, edible, street beautifying project we should see all over our towns and cities. It sure beats lining up in a petrol station carpark for four hours, waiting for the government food trucks to maybe arrive :

The English have their allotments; in Sydney we use the streets. In a variation on guerilla gardening, Sydneysiders are moving veggie plots from the backyard to the street verge, and converting formerly fallow public land into mini-market gardens.

"Environmentally, ethically and, from a community perspective, it's a great thing to do," says Eva Johnstone, a landscape architect, who with her husband, Bill, has been growing vegetables on their Marrickville street verge for the past two years.

"We always wanted to grow our own food, but our backyard is quite small, so the logical step was to grow it on the street, which was not being used for anything," Ms Johnstone said.

The Johnstones now have an established vegetable garden, with spinach, artichoke, rhubarb, peas, potatoes, beans, broccoli and beetroot. A nearby tree bears a passionfruit vine and a sign telling passersby to help themselves.

Street verges are council property but Mrs Johnstone says the council has been "happy to turn a blind eye.

Global warming, the drought and rising food prices have other Sydneysiders looking at local solutions to food production, says Michael Mobbs, a sustainability expert. A year ago, he and fellow residents of Myrtle Street, Chippendale, planted their nature strips and footpaths with a range of edible plants, including tomatoes, herbs, strawberries and fruit trees. Raspberries, rocket, native mint and passionfruit vines climb the telephone poles.

"We want to show people that they can grow food where they live and return to simpler, lower-impact lifestyle," says Mr Mobbs,....

Other councils are following suit.

The mayor of North Sydney : "We would certainly be very supportive if communities wanted to grow veggies in their street, as long as it's a community initiative."

Blame The Microwave Oven

Very weird. One of the stranger possible explanations for why a Qantas jet almost plunged out of control into the sea last week :

Air safety investigators say they will look into claims signals from a naval communications base near Exmouth in Western Australia's north may have caused last week's Qantas mid-air emergency.

Early last week a Qantas Airbus travelling from Singapore to Perth was forced to land near the town after nosediving hundreds of feet in seconds, injuring about 70 people.

A preliminary investigation by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) found a computer fault caused the aircraft to nosedive twice.

The ATSB says it will examine whether signals from the communications base could have sparked the glitch.

The communications base was originally used by the US Navy.

'Signals' from a coms base can cause a jet airliner to dramatically lose altitude, twice?

This might be the last you hear of that extremely curious explanation.


"What's this thing do?"
"Dunno. It's something the Yanks left behind."
"It's sure got a lot of buttons..."
"Don't touch any of them."
"...................okay."
"I'm going for a piss. You're in charge."
"Cool."

Eat The Poor

The Professional Idiot explains why financial hell is raining down all around us, and thank Rupert he's there to do this, to spell it all for us, otherwise we might go around thinking that it was somebody else but The Poor! who are responsible.

The “greed” that initially created this crisis was of poor people in the US who took out home mortgages they had little hope of repaying. Banks were encouraged to lend them the money by federal laws demanding more lending to minorities, or else, and by the expectation that the US Government would underwrite such lending. It was magnified by many other (greedy) investors, many of the middle classes, who borrowed money to play the stock exchange or to bank on rising property values.

Hallucinatorally stupid, and simple. This is the Fox News explanation that even its most die-hard viewers no longer believe, no matter how much they want to.

Is it more disturbing that The Professional Idiot actually believes this is what has happened, that The Poor helped destroy world economies by simply desiring more than poverty and for believing the soaring rhetoric of their own president who spent a good chunk of his eight years in the White House stumping at lower income communities across the US telling them they had to all become homeowners to be worthwhile Americans?

Or is it more disturbing that The Professional Idiot feels absolutely no shame in distributing this incredible propaganda, these fish-brained simple myths, so as to delay his readers from actually starting to think too hard about how monumentally they all just got fucked, and really start to wonder who did this?

So blame The Poor. Why not? Fuckit. What are they gonna do about it? Nothing. They just had the phone cut off.

So soak it up Povos, the hatred and blame directed at you by the gatekeepers for the privileged and rich is just beginning.

The mostly always excellent Eric Bana as Nero in JJ Abram's new movie version of Star Trek.

Rudd Takes A Bet Worth Hundreds Of Billions Of Dollars

The odds are good that PM Rudd's monumental bet, in stumping up future taxpayer revenue to guarantee bank and credit union deposits for all Australians, for at least three years, will pay off. Some predict profits. But it's still an extraordinary gamble, a stake in the hundreds of billions of dollars. The biggest bet ever laid in the history of Australia.

Though none of the major banks appear to be shot full of holes from the shrapnel of America's extended 'Economic 9/11', unless they're hiding something monumental (fatal derivatives exposure, perhaps?), its still a remarkable event in the history of the country. Perhaps it would have more resonance if there were visuals to go with it other than numbers on boards, and a fantasmagoria of graphs. It's been porn for actuaries.

The October 12 emergency meeting also showed that behind the theatre and media-filling antics of our politicians, they usually all fall into line when they sense a true and total threat to the nation, and their own futures.

And so for today, a new week for millions of Australians obsessively checking stock market figures begins. There will be misery, hope, ruin, horror, terror, joy, despair, probably all within the first twenty minutes of trading.

It seems very likely that if markets in Australia, the US, Britain and Europe drop more than 20% further by Tuesday, we will follow the example of Russia and Indonesia, amongst the many, and suspend all trading. Shut down the markets for a week or two, sort out the mess. Perhaps such a closure would be a good thing, for reasons other than financial.

Being able to have constant market updates coming through your phone, your TV, your radio, every news site you visit, is one step away from having a permanent ticker flowing through your mind's eye.

People are going to need a solid time out from this full-core media flow soon. It can't be good for the mind, or the soul. We already know its not good for the nerves.

Free Speech, Just Not The Angry Or Illegal Kind

The Professional Idiot sounds the warning today on why corporate media blogs are now useless for finding out what people are really angry about, and are instead training readers to subdue their emotions and opinions.

...if your comment doesn’t appear, consider resending without any abuse.

Not even a little abuse?

No. The Professional Idiot has to keep it G-rated.

The big wuss.

Here Comes The Water Train

Considering much of NSW and Queensland in still in drought, it's surprising that more isolated outback towns haven't been forced to truck or train in their water supplies :

An outback Queensland town is preparing to transport in drinking water by rail as a drought sucks the last of its dams dry.

The first water tanker could arrive in the northwest town of Cloncurry, population 2400, as early as next week.

There are plans to rail up to 12 million litres of potable water to the town, between Mount Isa and Townsville, which has watched helplessly as its supplies have dried up.

160,000 litres of water a day will arrive by rail, from Mount Isa.

What happens if Mt Isa dries up too?

Southern Australia Drought Now Worst On Record

It's Not Just The Longest Drought, It's Also The Hottest

Melbourne Suffers As South Australia Dries Up

Change You Can Indulge In

By Darryl Mason

An exciting ABC News headline declaring Victory for Australians who know what is bad for them, but who give not a fuck, regardless:




Wait a sec....Okay, I'm still a plodder when it comes to screen captures. That wasn't the full headline.



Damn.

That doesn't sound like any kind of fun.

The New Poverty could be expected to take care of too many people smoking and drinking, unless they brew their own beer and wine and grow their own smokeables, and let's face it, the dedicated drinkers and smokers will do exactly that. Obesity? Toxic intakes of cheese and peanut butter are expensive, and you kind of get the feeling, watching even mild fortunes vanish, that most people will be doing a lot more walking. Very soon.

So lay off all the expensive mood-blackening ads flash-blasting our evenings with death-plagued declarations that even the few occasional relieving luxuries left for the many are actually suicidal acts for which appalling guilt is mandatory.

"Hi George, It's Kevin, And I'm Here To Help"

Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd has spoken on the phone with US president George W. Bush about the Economic 9/11 that is wreaking more destruction upon America than anything suicidal terrorists could ever be capable of cooking up.

Do you think Kev told George it was time to "get with the new program"?

You don't get a transcript of that no doubt interesting conversation, unless you are signed up with the iKev ultranet, which, fortunately, we are :

Kev : "Hello, George, it's Kevin from Australia, and I'm here to help. Now, I want you to know that we are very concerned about the global financial meltdown..."

George : "........................I'm a puppet on a string..............."

Kev : "I...okay, George. Now, I know you're feeling enormous pressure as this..."

George : ".....they said they'd do it, and they did it. They did it, John. They actually did it...."

Kev : "It's Kevin here, George. The Australian prime minister. You remember, Rupert's friend? We've met at....anyway, I want you to know that Australia will stand side by side the United States all the way through this crisis. We have faith, that's faith, George, that you can...hold it together. Your country needs you, Mr President. The world needs you to..."

George : "Rummy warned me what they could do. They fucked us all. Like the goddamned Skull & Bones extra special initiation. They ripped down our pants, bent us over the altar and rammed their..."

Kev : "I can't talk too long, George. I'd imagine your very busy. But I want you to know that Australia will not abandon your country, even if everybody else except for Mexico and Georgia does. We will be ready with emergency food aid, and energy aid, and none of your forces in Australia will have to worry about going hungry if funding is...cut off."

George : "My presidency began with 9/11, and now there's another one to finish it off. But I know for sure this one was a controlled demolition, John. A once in a lifetime crash. That's how historians will write me up now, as the president that sent his country into the Greater Depression. I'm going down in history as the absolute dumbest fuck ever to walk into the White House. They'll mock me worse than Carter. They'll..."

Kev : (off - "Are you fucking crazy? Don't put him on hold! I'll get rid of this call...") "Yeah, that's great, George. Listen, it's always great to talk to you, even when times are tough. We're all in this together, remember that George...some more than others. But I'm sure you'll pull through with...anyway, I've got China on the other line, so I've got to go."

George : "Okay, John, okay. But before you go, I'd like to invite you and Janette to come over when I open my presidential library in..."

Kev : "That's great, George. Bye."

"America, Can You Hold? We Have China On The Other Line"

"So what's the good news?"
"You keep digging it up, we'll keep buying it."
"Are you sure? Can I announce that?"
"Of course. Just don't try to put up your prices any time soon. That would not please us."
"That's great news. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you..."
"Please do not grovel. We find it very unattractive."


The United States stumbles out of the casino, pockets empty, pants around the ankles, cleaned out, gutted, dropping near worthless IOUs nobody inside wants to cash anymore. China still sits at the high stakes tables, hanging onto most of its mountain of chips. A few big bets go down, there are substantial losses, but the chip mountain remains formidable, and the game is not over for them yet. Waiting, waiting, waiting...

You can almost hear Kevin Rudd humming that old Hunters & Collectors song, 'don't rock the boat, keep your head down...'

Kevin Rudd has sought and received a personal assurance from the Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao, that China's demand for exports would remain strong enough to prop up the Australian economy in the face of the global slowdown.

With the rapidly slowing global economy now a reality, Mr Rudd said he rang Mr Wen at 9pm on Monday to quiz him about his growth projections for China. Mr Rudd said he was told growth would slip from "something like 11 and 12 per cent down to 9 and 10 per cent", still strong enough to sustain a healthy demand for Australian commodity exports.

Mr Rudd believes China is the greatest militating factor against the global crisis and said the Communist nation was "now critical for Australia's continued economic performance".

"Part of the long-term strategy of this Government, and the strategy for the period immediately ahead, is how to more deeply and broadly engage with the Chinese economy," he said.

Asia will set the rules for the New Economic World Order, now that the UK, the EU and the US are busted out, choking on debt, shocked and staggered by the collapse (or demolition) of their banks and once AAA-rated financial institutions.

So the Communists didn't really lose, in the end, did they?

Just another confirmed lie, to heap onto the festering pile of lies we've been fed for decades, about free markets, globalisation, investing vs saving, and the bitter freedom of bountiful credit.

Sun Wookie

Some people like to search photos of nature and the stars questing for collisions of light and shade and colour that somewhat resemble the visage of Jesus, say, or a stomach churning demon. Or if they're really boring, the plain old face of The Devil.

I only search for faces that remind me of wookies.

And I found one in an extraordinary image of a sunspot.

Really, look for yourself. Sun Wookie!



More Images Here

Crunchy, Chickeny, Trippy

Can we eat our way out of the environmental destruction wrought by the repulsive Cane Toad?

Maybe. If the cane toad had a value high enough to make it worthwhile spending a night catching the invaders; if as a food product it proved profitable to round them up, gas them, and prepare them for cooking, then we could shut down their spread, wind back their numbers and unleash a new Australian delicacy into restuarants. That is, if you can hold your vomit.

Local food activists are having a hard enough time convincing Australians to get stuck into roo burgers, let alone grinding down on deep fried toad legs.

From the NT News :

Zimmern's chef prepared the toad legs in a garlic and white wine sauce, and deep-fried them with sweet chilli sauce.

Chefs skinned the legs and avoided toxins when preparing them.

They got rid of the most fun part.

Ms Britton said only the bigger toads had legs with enough meat on them to eat, and they were tough and sinewy in the joints.

And what do they taste like? Chicken, of course.

Full Story Here

When Truth Is 'Trolling'

I wrote a comment to this post by Tim Blair at a Daily Telegraph blog, about claims Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin linked the Iraq War to 9/11 in a speech to US troops, but it was censored for supposed 'trolling'.

I cited this story from the reputable Jane's, published on September 19, 2001, which shows that Israel's military intelligence service, Aman, were probably the first to publicly draw deep linkages between Saddam's Iraq and the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the WTC :

Israel’s military intelligence service, Aman, suspects that Iraq is the state that sponsored the suicide attacks on the New York Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington.

When I sent a second comment, asking these questions...

How exactly is trying to clear up where the Iraq Did 9/11 myth came from 'trolling'? Or is Jane's not a reputable enough source for Tim Blair's blog?

...the comment was again censored for 'trolling' :




So what exactly did Blair and his moderator object to in my comments? Was it that Israel is responsible for trying to link Iraq to the 9/11 attacks, a myth eventually rejected by President Bush? or was it the fact that I mentioned the Jane's story also details how the CIA and Mossad have used car bombs, killing dozens of civilians, as part of their joint 'counter-terrorism' operations?

A year later, in a combined CIA/Mossad operation, a powerful car bomb went off at the entrance to the house of Hizbullah’s spiritual leader, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah. Seventy-five people were killed.

Terrorism, ironically, is a fairly effective weapon used by the West to supposedly fight terrorism, in the 'War on Terror'. Is this really such a big secret? Only if you read nothing but the Murdoch media.

Obviously Tim Blair's readers need to cushioned from such uncomfortable truths. Wouldn't want facts to get in the way of the 'Our Terror Bombs Are Freedom Bombs' modern warfare narratives.

Busted

A massive police operation swept through the grinning crowds at the Sydney ParkLife festival yesterday, and came up with a measly handful of drug-related arrests :

The operation included general duties officers, traffic units, drug detection dogs, plain clothes officers, mounted police, licensing supervisors and operational support group personnel.

It's not that people are doing less drugs at these gigs, they simply know to imbibe their gear before they reach the police checkpoints. Police mostly cautioned those busted with personal-use amounts of cannabis, instead of hauling them away.

Police are in an interesting quandary. They know the more people on cannabis or Es, at festivals like Parklife, the less likely it is they will have to deal with toxic, violent drunks. But police have to spend their 'Fighting Drugs' budgets at the same time.

Still, there are no cocaine dogs patrolling the financial district, or Macquarie Street, of course. And while you will find police leading drug dogs through Kings Cross and along the platforms of Blacktown and Penrith train stations, you still won't see them along New South Road, Double Bay, Military Road, Cremorne, or Queen Street, Paddington.

Cops have to bust people for carrying small amounts of illegal drugs, just not so much the ones that can afford a battery of expensive lawyers or who have hassling political connections.

No Idea

The Daily Telegraph's Tim Blair claims Bruce Springsteen "isn't the draw he once was".

Yeah, now Springsteen only draws tens of thousands of people together to hear his songs.

Rupert Murdoch Doesn't Back Climate Change Fear Mongering, Except When He Does

I asked Daily Telegraph opinionist Piers Akerman why he shreds Labor and professors and Al Gore and the ABC over climate change fear mongering, while continuing to give a free pass to his own boss, Rupert Murdoch, now the most prolific and influential promoter of climate change reality in the world :

Your boss backs the fear mongering as well, Piers. Why don’t you get in his ear?

Akerman denies that his boss uses his media to spread fear and unease about the effects of climate change :

"I don’t think he backs fear mongering, I believe he makes decisions on the best available evidence and is not afraid of admitting his mistakes when he’s been wrong..."

I stand corrected. Rupert Murdoch and his media, like the Daily Telegraph, do not back the fear mongering promotion of climate change reality, apparently. Which is why stories and headlines like this never appear in The Daily Telegraph, except when they do, which is often :


Akerman also claims that "Murdoch’s editors are responsible for their own decisions," meaning that Murdoch has no influence over editorial decisions made by his newspapers. Except, of course, when Murdoch openly admits that he does indeed tell his newspaper editors what to publish :

Rupert Murdoch has admitted to a parliamentary inquiry (in the UK) that he has "editorial control" over which party The Sun and News of the World back in a general election and what line the papers take on Europe.

The minute stated: "For The Sun and News of the World he explained that he is a 'traditional proprietor'. He exercises editorial control on major issues..."

He also helped "shape" the pro-Iraq War message across his worldwide media empire, and admits it here.

Embracing Corporate Greenism has proven very profitable for Rupert Murdoch, and his media, as energy giants flood his newspapers and websites with advertising promoting their new Green Consciousness.

The blogs of former Murdoch 'global warming deniers' now 'climate change realists', like Akerman, Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt are where you will now most often see such Corporate Greenism advertising.

If there's money in it, Rupert's always a true believer.

I, Too, Agree With Everything That Strange Little Australian Said

So Canada's prime minister was getting the same BushCo. propaganda sheets on the Iraq War as John Howard :

Flanked by two large televisions, Rae played a split-screen video showing Howard and Harper, then leader of the Canadian Alliance party, giving their speeches to their respective parliaments.

Howard delivered his speech on March 18, 2003, before the bombs fell on Baghdad. Harper gave his on March 20, the first full day of the Iraq war, which has killed more than 4,000 U.S. soldiers.

Both urged support for the U.S. effort. "Alliances are a two-way process," Howard and Harper said. "We should not leave it to the United States to do all the heavy lifting just because it is the world's ("only" added Harper) superpower."

At several points in the video, the voices of the two leaders are heard to overlap perfectly, prompting laughter and cries of "Shame! Shame!" from the crowd.

Lethally Non-Lethal

They will probably prove to be very handy in encouraging former home owners to leave their homes, as banks somehow are able to deploy police to do their dirtiest work, but who will be the first mother and child to be tasered in New South Wales?

In a move aimed at alleviating community concerns, the taser X26 models are fitted with a small video camera on their stock to film their use.

In May, the former police minister David Campbell said the government would spend more than $1 million on 229 units to give police the option of using "less than lethal" force.

A report by the NSW Ombudsman into the safety of tasers is not expected to be tabled before the NSW parliament until later this month.

It surely can only make sense to hand out hundreds of tasers nearly a month BEFORE the safety report is made public.

'Two Lives Taken By A Single Taser Blast'