Tony Abbott : May I Compare John Howard To The Lord, Or Is That Going Too Far?

Below are extracts from a speech that Tony Abbott will give this weekend at the Young Liberals convention. You know, if you think about it, John Howard really is a lot like Victoria Cross winning soldiers, Winston Churchill, John Curtin and Ronald Reagan.

Last week, an Australian was awarded the Victoria Cross for the first time in 40 years. Trooper Mark Donaldson deliberately made himself a target to protect wounded comrades.

Donaldson also scored the appreciation of the nation, and ample popular coverage in the media.

Another Australian received a medal last week. In Washington, then president George W. Bush conferred on former Australian prime minister John Howard the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

John Howard's final money shot with Bush was not exactly popular with Australians.

Reactions to Howard's award, by contrast, ranged from muted compliments to bilious rage.

He's exaggerating. Most Australians who had grown to shudder whenever Howard appeared on the evening news, no longer cared where he was, or what he was doing, and if Bush was involved, then it was more likely to be, "and I'm supposed to give a shit, why?".

Tony parses the arguments for why Bush is not an idiot :

Eighty-two per cent of more than 11,000 respondents to The Age's online poll said he didn't deserve it. My ABC blog, giving credit to Bush and Howard, generated 367 mostly apoplectic responses within two days.

"Only a fool accepts a medal from an idiot," said another respondent. This is the kind of cheap shot that everyone in politics has to get used to. Whatever Bush's faults or mistakes, idiots don't become president of the US.

About 70% of Americans may disagree with you there, Tony.

It's worth pondering, though, in the different reactions to these medals, the different responses people have to courage in battle and to courage in public life.

It never ceases to blow my mind how politicians so freely, and without shame, draw parallels between being under fire in a war zone and sitting around in an air-conditioned parliament trying to think up new ways to outwit Julia Gillard.

Abbott's on about it again, here :

Field marshal William Slim, a fighting soldier who became governor-general of Australia, once said that moral courage was a higher and rarer virtue than physical courage. Moral courage means facing issues and making decisions that every normal human instinct would rather avoid.

Provided you have to answer for the decision, it takes a similar measure of courage to commit soldiers to battle as to face the bullets yourself.

Except for the whole bit where you're actually facing, you know, real bullets.

At least in Western counties, there is no risk of death in the battle of ideas.

Not unless those ideas eat away at the soul of the nation, and then it's just a slow death.

Tony has so many complaints about that which he has devoted his life to.

Public life is not without its satisfactions but they're rarely sustaining.

Tony is finding life in politics, post-being somebody, not so grand. Hopefully, he can draw some comfort from the morbidly obese parliamentary pension and the Super super waiting for him.

But, yes, there are other rewards.

The chief reward is the knowledge that you've tried to serve your country and the hope, often forlorn, that this might be recognised by people who matter.

Forlorn hope must be viewed as some kind of reward if you want to make in Liberal politics now?

Politicians deal with the problems that are too big or too hard for individuals or private organisations to handle on their own.

If that's the core reason why politicians actually exist, you get the feeling they might not be so essential, for much longer.

The difference between a politician and almost every other citizen is his preparedness to take responsibility, not just for his own actions, but for the state of the wider world.

Including, obviously, taking responsibility for the actions you took that fucked up some parts of the wider world.

Here's Tony having a bit of a George W. Bush moment, imagining himself as a voter complaining about politicians :

How dare he change the circumstances of my employment, revise the way I get to work, alter the rules under which I live, or put at risk the reputation of my country.

Yeah, who'd want to ever get fired up about any of those things?

Apparently, some day, we really will think of John Howard as one part of a triple Return Of The Jedi-finale style glowing team, along with Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan.

There are only two kinds of popular politicians: those who haven't yet made a tough decision and those who have been vindicated by events. Rudd and, for all his undoubted brilliance and promise, Barack Obama are in the former category. Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan are in the latter. I am sure that Howard too will be one day.

The Politics Is Just Like Fighting In Wars, No Really It Is theme resurfaces as Abbott seeks to honour those who fell in the fields of battle :

There are also all the unknown soldiers of politics who fail at preselection; the backbench MPs, unspectacular ministers, and frontbenchers whose party never made it into government, who are mere footnotes to history.

And on the going down of the sun we shall honour the unknown soldiers who fell at preselection...

Abbott has been caught up in ObamaFever. Feel the call of Change in his words :

At every level, many are called but few are chosen. All of them, at least to some extent, have risked their reputations, livelihoods and personal happiness to try to improve their country.

But he's still talking about politicians.

Abbott gives an apparently miserable, put upon, stressed out, divorce-looming, utterly harassed life in Liberal Party politics the hard sell to the Young Liberals conventioneers :

The hours are long, the responsibilities immense, the exposure relentless, the pay modest, the satisfactions fleeting, and the pressure on families cruel. To the public, travel is a perk of the job. To MPs' spouses, it can be grounds for divorce. Politicians have official and semi-official socialising most days. To the public, it's little more than having fun on taxpayer's time. To MPs' families, it's being married to the job, not them.

And it's an even more shit lifestyle now politicians are not allowed to be raging, or even borderline, alcoholics.

Why would anyone be a politician? It's a fair question. Because there are considerably easier ways to earn a living or to make a name for yourself, the only sustaining reason to be in politics is the determination to make a difference. That's what makes politics a calling rather than just a job.

But compared to a lot of other jobs out there, getting paid good money to be a politician is still a pretty damn fine gig, despite the hours. And most of those there at the Young Liberals convention this weekend, hearing Tony Abbott deliver those words, already know that.

Grods reports that the Young Liberals new plan to unite the nation, following the grand Howard tradition of doing everything possible to piss off the youth vote, involves refusing to give students their university degrees until they've completed nine months of national service.

Why Do They Hate America So Much?

Step forward the new screechers of foam-flecked anti-Americanism :

While it may seem uncharitable to be critical of a new US President on his Inauguration Day...

What the hell, it's never too early to kick off The Great Obama HateFest 2009-2017.

Remember, when Australians were critical of George W. Bush, and refused to believe his deadly lies, and wrote letters and protested about a war they didn't want to be a part of? They were not only Bush Haters, they were damned terrorist-loving anti-Americans as well. Obviously.

Bush Derangement Syndrome, we learned, was just a cover for an all round loathing of Americans and American culture.

If you thought the American president was a dill, or a dangerous fool, you instantly hated all Americans.

So obviously those same rules and labels must also apply now, particularly for those, like Piers Akerman, who can't even wait until Obama sits down at his desk in the West Wing for the first time before he goes after the new American president.

Here another Murdoch journo using sneering mockery to hide his Obama Hating Anti-American extremism :

"...(the inauguration commences) with the ceremonial healing of blind crippled lepers and ending with Obama’s transformation into a single beam of pure light. Let the miracles begin!"

Most of the anti-American extremism in the Australian media today is coming from Murdoch writers like Piers Akerman and Janet Albretchsen and Tim Blair, and Andrew Bolt will of course soon join them, but this core group of anti-American Obama Haters should not forget the warnings from their own boss, Rupert Murdoch, about such easy and tempting hatred :

"The Australian people must not allow their perfectly legitimate doubts about one policy or one American administration to cloud their long-term judgment...Australians must resist and reject the facile, reflexive, unthinking anti-Americanism..."

And they should not forget the warnings of John Howard :

"While anti-Americanism seemingly finds a ready outlet in every age, we should not pretend that it is cost-free. For some, a bit of armchair anti-Americanism may be nothing more than a mild indulgence. But … be careful what you wish for."

The Obama Hating Anti-Americans in the Murdoch media will claim they're only criticising the new American president, and holding him to account, but don't let them fool you : They Hate America.

Obama Wins Presidency : A "Victory For Stupidity"

Reality Has A Hamas-Related Bias

By Darryl Mason

The Australian newspaper reveals there is outrage, from some, that Australians are angered and outraged now they are finally seeing the true horror of what Israel has done to Gaza on the evening news. The outrage that Australians are disgusted by what they see and hear about Gaza on the news is now becoming shrill :

Sure enough, some television programs did invite a token Israeli guest who tried to explain Israel's case. But the answers given seemed to be presented as propaganda, and the implication was that the only story to be believed was the Hamas narrative.

When news finally gets out about how those hundreds of women and children died in Gaza, the news takes on a 'Hamas narrative'. If you believe the stories from the UN, from the Red Cross, from the BBC, from CNN, from ABC, from the Murdoch media, from The Australian itself, about children hiding in UN safe houses and hospital being shelled by Israel, you are believing 'The Hamas Narrative'. It is implied.

Wow.

...the strategy has worked for Hamas: it produced the images that screamed from the front pages of newspapers and TV screens, pushing the buttons of people across the world.

Yes, why would people across the world have their buttons pushed by images like this?



Presumably, the preferred reaction to images of civilian slaughter by an Australian ally is to not have any buttons pushed at all.

It gets a little creepy.

Emotions cloud the context; the result is a circus.

Don't become emotional when you hear and see on the evening news that an Australian ally, an ally in the 'War On Terror', is slaughtering women and children by the hundreds.

By forgetting the context, voluntarily or not, much of the Western commentators have implied this: it is permissible for terror groups to use civilians as human shields, but not for a legitimate country to mistakenly kill civilians in the course of battling enemy.

The latter is being portrayed as a crime against humanity.

It usually is when hundreds of civilians are killed, and when it keeps happening, to UN buildings and schools, when the UN has told the legitimate country that those buildings belong the UN, and have civilians in them.

The worry about 'Western commentators' forgetting "the context" of how missiles tear off children's legs and shred their faces with shrapnel is misplaced concern. Those who have to sell Israel's side of the state terror attacks on Gaza have got far bigger problems than 'Western commentators' nosing around the words "war crimes".

When even the Murdoch media are running news caps like the one below, on News.com.au's main page and the Daily Telegraph online front page, for almost 48 hours, you've got a serious, devastating public relations disaster on your hands :

Apparently the people of Gaza got off lightly, writes Albert Dadon, founder and chairman of the Australia Israel Cultural Exchange :

The only surprise is the low number of civilian casualties in an area where 1.4 million Palestinians live....

1300 dead, more than 5000 wounded, thousands of buildings destroyed, including schools and hospitals, playgrounds bombed....

This is a result of the care with which Israel has operated.

Imagine the death toll if they didn't care?

Israel says 12 per cent of casualties are civilians, Hamas say 40 per cent. Whatever the percentage, it is a tragedy. But citing numbers and showing images while forgetting the context creates one more casualty: the truth.

I think you will find The Truth became a casualty in what Israel is doing to Gaza a long time ago.

The headline for the opinion piece quoted above, published in a newspaper, is extraordinary.

Images Of Bloodshed Obscure Truth

A newspaper is telling you not to trust the usually non-bloody images they allow you to see.

But even those images don't obscure the obvious truth of the bloodshed in Gaza, and who is responsible for it.

You've Got Your Notes, You've Been Briefed, Now Go Write Some Blogaganda

No Rude Words, Please, This Is A Respectable Tabloid Website

Associate Editor for Sydney's Daily Telegraph, Tim Blair, notices the freedom of reader-generated, straight-shooting news and opinion over at the Pakistan Daily :



It doesn't get any more straight-shooting than that. Not even the Daily Telegraph can so boldly and clearly state an opinion in a headline.

Commenters at the Pakistan Daily celebrate the freedom of non-corporate online news :

"Damn straight!! All Lefties are cunts!"

"Brilliant headline, this has to be the headline of the year."

"Loving it. Keep up the good work."

Unfortunately, Tim Blair's not allowed to have rude words at his corporate blogging digs, even from commenters :

Incidentally, naughty words will be ******* cut or edited, so don’t ******* use them. And editing the ******* things takes time, which causes delays...

Not like the old, independent days.

Blair can't use words like cunt, fucker, fuckhead or cockhammer, but at least for now he can still link to places that are allowed use those naughty, naughty words.

Buffoon Explains Why Idiot Was Bad In Front Of The Cameras

Alexander Downer has taken time out from his busy international relations work, as Member for Cyprus, to blame "the media" for ex-President George W. Bush- btw, that's ex-President George W. Bush - talking and performing in ways that convinced billions he was either inherently dim, downright dumb, or somewhat brain damaged from alcohol abuse.

"I think a big function of it is the way he appears in the media as a slightly nervous, unconfident and bumbling Texan," Downer said.

Downer doesn't bother to mention that this son from one of America's most elite families dolloped on the "gee shucks, I'm just a good old boy from Texas" as a part of a cultivated image.

Mr Downer says Mr Bush's performance in front of the cameras has been a major problem for the US government.

"I don't think in the media he was ever good actually, I don't think he improved," he said.

Unlike Alexander Downer, who was an outstanding media performer, even when drunk. Downer is the only politician in the country who made Brendan Nelson look like a natural in front of the cameras. Downer's speciality, of course, was to start whining when the questions got too hard, a whine that became so intensely grating, for the interviewer and just about everybody watching at home, that you wanted Downer sent to bed, immediately, without ice-cream.

"I've not of course said that to (Bush's) face...."

Of course not, Alex.

"...but I've said it to a number of people in the administration."

Who then saw you doing interviews and thought, 'You know, we don't have a lot to work with here....But people really seem to like his Bushisms. We can build on that. But this Downer guy has nothing.'

It's interesting that Alexander Downer is on JJJ's Hack doing interviews. He used to despise the program, and then prime minister John Howard refused to even do one interview with the radio show that reached more than half a million young Australians, in every town and village across the country. Downer always made it sound like he was doing Steve Cannane some huge favour by reducing himself to speaking to Yoof Radio.

Now, of course, Downer has plenty of time for Hack. It's one of the few media outlets that reaches a huge audience in Australia that is still interested in what he has to say.

The Sydney Morning Herald on the no-really? shocking revelation that The Woman Who Fell In Love With A Stranger's Jacket is actually a, very successful, exercise in viral marketing :



You've Been Had? No, I think you'll find it was the Sydney Morning Herald, and every single mainstream news echo chamber in Australia that has been had. Not me, not you, but all of them. They ran the ridiculous story as a factual event, even though most of the journalists who covered it suspected from the start that it was all as dodgy as.

Rupert Murdoch's Mum Goes Where Her Son's Newspapers Fear To Tred

Dame Elizabeth Murdoch says what The Australian newspaper's most glorified columnists still refuse to fully acknowledge, in print :

"I could never quite forgive (John) Howard for insisting on going on and destroying the party and himself"

No doubt during one of her weekly hour or so long calls with her son, Liz expressed her dislike of Howard, probably around the time the Daily Telegraph and other Murdoch papers began an Obama-media like campaign hailing Kevin Rudd as the new leader of Australia.

Liz also reveals that delicate Rupert can't stand the lack of central heating in her old house.

"They get soft," she says in reference to her aubergine-haired son.

Complaining about his mum's places not having central heating isn't the sort of behaviour you'd expect from a climate change alarmist like Rupert.

This interesting Murdoch-related note, considering the past three weeks of Israel's civilian slaughter in Gaza, taken from the new Murdoch worshipping biography, The Man Who Owns The News (already being given away with Crikey subscriptions) :

When father Murdoch attacks the Palestinians, (his son) James says he’s “Talking fucking nonsense. … They were kicked out of their fucking homes and had nowhere to fucking live.”

September 2007 : Murdoch Journalist Denies Murdoch Media Conspiracy To Get Kevin Rudd Elected

The Most Influential Australian Of All Time Is....An American

Murdoch's Billion Dollar Bungle In China

Murdoch Admits Using His Worldwide Media Empire To Shape Opinion On The Iraq War

How Murdoch Influences Politicians : Do What I Tell You Or My Newspapers Will Bury You

The Last Day

"I can look you in the eye and tell you I feel I've tried to solve the problem diplomatically to the max...

- US President George W. Bush, April 24, 2006

A few more all but forgotten Bushisms here. I'm not sure Bushisms will be funny, at all, in a decade's time. They will probably just seem...sad. Reminders of too many wasted years, wasted lives, wasted opportunities in the life of America.

Obama will not be the Messiah that unrepentent Bush-lovers hope that Americans are praying for (so Bush lovers can point and hoot if Obama fails to be anything less than monumental), but put it this way : Obama will have to work miracles to be any fucking worse for America, and the world, than Bush was.

Here's my sign-off from The Last Days Of President George W. Bush blog.

A Cool Change


"Seriously man, one day I'm gonna be president!"

Obamamamamamamama : a short essay I wrote over at Your New Reality

Australia Will Back UN Investigation Of Israel War Crimes

The Rudd government treads softly, but the message is clear :

A spokeswoman for the Prime Minister said the government was deeply concerned about the continuing conflict in the Gaza Strip.

"The death of Palestinian civilians in conflict is tragic and we urge Israel to ensure that it takes all precautions to avoid and minimise harm to civilians," she said.

"The Australian government supports the proper investigation of allegations of violations of international law."

That's diplomatic speak for 'war crimes'.

The Rudd government doesn't have to look too far to find obvious violations of international law by Israel :

From the Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Incendiary Weapons :

1. It is prohibited in all circumstances to make the civilian population as such, individual civilians or civilian objects the object of attack by incendiary weapons.

2. It is prohibited in all circumstances to make any military objective located within a concentration of civilians the object of attack by air-delivered incendiary weapons.

A federal Labor source says that the disgust and anger at Israel's slaughter of hundreds of children in Gaza, and the targeting of hospitals, schools and even UN food warehouses, is deep and wide and very much alive across the government, including many of those politicians who have long thought that Israel could do next to no wrong.

Apparently, during the Christmas-New Year break, a lot of federal, and state, politicians copped earfuls of questions, outrage and abuse from friends and family and neighbours on why Australia was so quiet about what Israel was doing to the people of Gaza, and why we were not, as a nation, voicing our opposition to a War On Terror ally killing and wounding thousands of civilians.

Some will try and convince you that the only Australians fully outraged and disgusted by the destruction of Gaza and the slaying of so many children are Muslims with Palestinian-heritage.

They are liars.

The Inner Hoon Never Dies

It would be very interesting to know how many of these MidLife Crisis Hoons the Victorian Police now claim are now smoking their tyres in the streets never had a hoon-worthy car to hoon hard back when Cold Chisel and The Angels were still at the top of the charts.

...while the majority of hoon drivers are under 25, drivers between 40 to 60 years old are frequently flouting the law.

"That middle life crisis hoon is starting to emerge," he said.

"We have seen more than 150 of those in the 12 months. It is a bit confusing, to be perfectly honest, for the police to understand this. These are mature, sensible people, one would think, but they are putting themselves at risk and other road users at risk."

The inner hoon never dies, it just retreats, saying, 'Okay, you got this family thing for a couple of decades, so I'll leave alone. But I'll be back.'

I'll take a wild guess that a lot of these MiLCHers never actually had a hoonable car, in their youth, when you're supposed to get that kind of thing out of your system, and sometimes die doing it. But in their 40s, they finally had the money to buy that totally fangable car, with no need for child seats anymore, perhaps even something now vintage, the kind of car they'd once had posters of stuck to the walls of their teenaged bedrooms.

And, presumably, the purchase of that grunting car came shortly after the divorce.

For Every Three Babies Born In Australia, One Miscarries

Now that the gruesome hysteria surrounding abortion in Australia has faded with the continuing loss, and influence, of right-wing conservative power, it's time well overdue to bring a true 'dark secret' into the media spotlight. That the Australian mainstream media so rarely even discusses this daily tragedy affecting thousands of people is a tragedy in itself, and inexcusable.

Monica Dux :

I recently suffered a miscarriage. I was deeply shaken by the physical process and by the intensity of my grief. But...very few people were aware I'd even been pregnant. And because the pregnancy was a secret, its loss was doubly hard to broach.

Yet, as word of my "secret" slowly spread through my social circle, I was stunned by the number of miscarriage stories women suddenly had to share, as if I'd been admitted to a secret society. Some talked of long, excruciating waits before they could confirm the "failed pregnancy" diagnosis, others of their anguish as they passed a recognisable foetus. One acquaintance confided the disappointment of five lost pregnancies had been the biggest factor in the breakdown of her marriage. All the women spoke of how difficult it was to publicly express their grief, and of the silence that permeates the experience.

The Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health recently reported that, for every three women who have given birth by their early 30s, one has had a miscarriage. Yet despite its frequency, miscarriage is an almost invisible phenomenon. It seems our society is not geared towards grieving, or even acknowledging, the loss of an early pregnancy.

As the American author Peggy Orenstein has observed, the English language doesn't even have a word for a lost foetus.

Read The Full Story Here

Australia's Bermuda Triangle? Or Is It Australia's Area 51?


A Google Earth image of the Exmouth military base discussed in the below story.


By Darryl Mason

I've been mulling over ideas for a long-short fiction story about UFOs in Australia, particularly about a UFO visit to a dying country town. Googling UFOs and Australia turns up some interesting stuff, some of it mundane, some of it apparently unexplainable, and some of it downright loco.

Whatever they are, there sure are a shitload of reports about UFOs zipping, zapping, whipping and zooming across Australian skies.

Naturally, the government knows all about it.

According to this site the UnOpposition leader Malcolm Turnbull is "keeping mysteriously quiet on the topic" of UFOs. I think that means he was momentarily stunned into silence when quizzed by a stranger in the street about The Great Australian UFO (You Know Something! Tell Me!) Cover Up :

Michael Cohen, of All News Web, happened to chance upon Mr Turnbull and ask him a few questions regarding UFO related topics, probably the first time he was asked anything on the topic by any media outlet.

Some of his answers were startling.

On whether he would disclose what the Government knew about UFO and Alien visitation and contact with humans he was rather evasive, claiming he wasn't sure they knew anything and if they did they weren't telling him or anyone he knows.

Then he made the surprise revelation: "That information would be above top secret, highest classification of secrecy". This was a truly remarkable comment. He also mentioned that 'Australia hasn't had its Roswell yet' to which our reporter replied 'That's not exactly true.'

When asked if he believed earth is being visited by Aliens and whether he believed in UFO's he simply reversed the question and asked our reporter if he did. Yet the impression gained was that he knew more than he was prepared to give away.

Typical Turnbull. Full of secrets. Fun secrets. I want to see Kerry O'Brien on the 7.30 Report hammering Turnbull about his top secret UFO knowledge and their secret bases in Australia.

And maybe Turnbull can be quizzed more thoroughly on what he knows about the recent mid-air incidents with Qantas jets and how they are not what they appear to be. If you really fire up the imagination, you can clearly see that UFOs had to involved :

Both incidents occurred in almost the exact same spot over the mysterious town of Exmouth in Western Australia. The town happens to contain two highly restricted military bases as a well as the Learmonth Solar Observatory which is also used for planetary defense including ionosphere monitoring and meteor detection and tracking: A great cover for actual UFO related activity.

The Naval Communications Station Harold E Holt is notoriously secretive regarding its activities and reportedly denied any connection to the events. Even Less is known about the RAAF base Learmonth or the very secretive Learmonth Solar Observatory: tellingly managed by the US Air Force. Almost nothing is known of the NASA established Learmonth Magnetic Observatory, now also under US Air Force control.

The question must be asked: Is Exmouth Australia’s Area-51 and are UFO’s either being monitored from here or even using a landing base in the region as a stepping stone for exploring earth?

Yeah, it is a question that must be asked. Someone has to go after Turnbull again, he sounds punchy when people start demanding UFO discolsure from him. He must be made to detail the truth about Australia's Secret UFO Earth Exploration Terminal & Lounge Bar at Exmouth, with all those alien spacecraft landing strips cleverly disguised as dirt access roads for radar tower engineers.

-------------------------------

At Katoomba, in the Blue Mountains, there used to be this amazing little museum (under the revolving restuarant, near the Three Sister lookout at Echo Point) that featured wall displays of newspaper reports, illustrations and sometimes even photos of supposed local sightings of UFOs, big cats and Yowies.

To a six year old, learning that wild, ravenous panthers and tall, hairy monster men roamed the mountains was fairly mundane stuff. I already knew from watching Leonard Nimoy hosting Great Mysteries Of The World on Saturday afternoons that monsters stalking urban-fringing forests was no big deal, in the United States, England or Australia.

But that little Echo Point museum also went into great detail about (naturally) top secret UFO bases operating freely in the isolation of the Blue Mountains. They were hidden inside some of the mountains, if I remember rightly, and huge slabs of cliff face would open so massive alien aircraft could zoom into the clouds, all but undetected by earth-based lifeforms.

Even at six years old, the bullshit alarm beeped a little as I wandered that pokey little museum, but what fantastic imaginative fuel it was to feast on before going to the lookout to search the trees and cliffs for just the faintest sign of those UFO base entrances, and exits, that I truly hoped were actually there.

That little museum, and its fantastical local tales of alien spacecraft and forest monsters, long gone now, always made those family trips to the mountains just that little bit more exciting.

I lived in the Blue Mountains twenty years after those family visits, and I saw a lot of weird, unexplainable shit late at night, up there, but most of it involved locals stumbling home from the Gearins Hotel. And I never accidentally came across any entrances to secret UFO bases either, on any of the many long walks through the bush. Not that I was really looking...

Well, maybe....sometimes.

Would You Pay $1100 For The Lasting Pleasure Of Dropping One Tonne Of HorseShit At The Gates Of NSW Parliament?

Fines are supposed to discourage people from not breaking the law. There are many in NSW who must think only being fined $1100 for unlawfully depositing horse shit in front of State Parliament is a a pretty good deal :

When Leonard Devine dumped a tonne of horse manure at Parliament House's Macquarie Street gates, you could not mistake his message.

To be sure he planted a placard in it, saying: "CORPORATE GOVT - JUST STINKS".

Another of his placards read: "Police, firemen, nurses, teachers, ambos, paramedics all underpaid, not politicians."

Devine was fined $1100 yesterday for unlawfully depositing waste, but the unrepentant ex-roof tiler told Downing Centre Local Court: "I don't really think I've done anything wrong."

The court heard on August 28 last year, Devine stopped his tipper truck on Macquarie St, outside State Parliament, dumped a tonne of horse manure on the footpath and was arrested.

Why did he do it? Simple. He "couldn't take it anymore."

Non-Terrorist Petrol Bombs

In the WTF? story of the month :

Two backpackers claimed that they had been unwittingly caught up in a 100km police chase last night, in a van crammed with petrol bombs and fuel drums.

Last night police were trying to determine if the male and female backpackers were unsuspecting tourists or willing accomplices.

The three were cuffed, with the driver pinned face-down on the driveway for 30 minutes, before they were taken away in separate police vehicles.

Witnesses reported more than a dozen police cars were involved in the arrest, while PolAir flew overhead. Service station franchisee Praveen Singh was shocked by the number of police.

"I've never seen that many police any time we have had an armed robbery," he said.

He told The Daily Telegraph police vehicles had screeched in and surrounded the van before police detained the three people, all aged in their early 20s.

"The van had bottles with rags coming out, molotov cocktails, some computer equipment, paperwork, like files, some fuel drums and hoses like you would use for siphoning," Mr Singh said.

"The 44-gallon drums were at least half full of fuel because the cops couldn't move them."

A police spokesman said the incident did not appear to be terrorism related.

Investigations continued last night but no charges had been laid.

A van filled with petrol bombs and fuel involved in a 100km long police chase and no charges have been laid?

What's wrong with this story?

If it's all true, the backpackers must have absolutely shit themselves when the van was surrounded by police. But then, when you look at a photograph of the van, you'd imagine it would be impossible not to know, by the smell alone, that the van was crammed with fuel in containers and drums.

Was something terrible supposed to have happened that thankfully did not?

Joyce Refuses To Goose Step Around Liberal Party Offices

Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce is not a disciple of Al Gore. Climate change is, according to Joyce, basically bullshit, and the emission trading system is a scam to introduce a crippling new tax, on everyone (he's not far wrong there). But don't go thinking that these beliefs put Joyce at odds with Liberals leader Malcolm Turnbull in any way at all, or that a clash of their beliefs will cause yet more chaos for the coalition.

Hell, no :

Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull has played down suggestions of a rift in the Coalition over climate change.

Joyce voiced strong opposition to the Government's proposed emissions trading scheme, labelling it as nothing more than a "new tax" and adding: "I think that is a load of rubbish to think that Australia is going to change the climate."

Cue Malcolm Turnbull with plenty of buckets of cold water for all the other Nationals and Liberals who think Joyce is spot on :

"The Coalition's position on this issue is very well known - it's the same that we had in government," he said.

"We're very committed to action on climate change that is economically responsible and environmentally effective."

Joyce :

"[Does] one has to sort of fall into a lock step, goose step, and parade around the office ranting and raving that we're all as one?"

Yes, according to Turnbull, one does :

Mr Turnbull says the Coalition will be responding with "one voice" when the Government releases its legislation for the scheme in the coming months.

Joyce is convinced that there are plenty of votes out there for politicians who will stand up to The Green Terror (of Andrew Bolt and Tim Blair fantasies), and that the overwhelming number of Australians who backed Rudd on climate change policies are now dwindling away as the economic sleeper hold begins to take effect.

Joyce may be right about climate change true believers peeling away, but there's not a lot of poll proof to back it up. Yet. Regardless, a very public and extended clash between Turnbull (poncy inner city Lefty-friendly, Green religionist, disguised as a Liberal Party leader) and Joyce (Bloody Rational Nationals, mate!) certainly seems to be on the cards.

Rudd will let them brawl out their climate change differences in public, while intricately analysing the public response, and will presumably change his climate change policy accordingly. That is, enough to ensure a second term in office if Joyce's A Great Climate Change Swindle manages to become a bigger issue of concern for most than, say, not having a house, or a job, or reliable sources of food.

If there is a great, unrecognised mass of Australian voters who believe carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, and thinks trying to stop climate change is more of a risk than letting it happen, Joyce will no doubt find them.

But if they're there, Rudd will no doubt find a way to reach them, and win them over, once Joyce has pulled them from the shadows.

But for Rudd, 2008 was a warm-up. In 2009, the RuddBot will joined by Ruddzilla. Well, hopefully, if covering politics in even a distracted and half-hearted way is going to be any kind of intriguing entertainment. I've seen circling flies fall asleep, mid-flight, when Rudd speeches are were droning out of the television last year.

Barnaby Joyce already believes he would make a damn fine prime minister, and that most Australians harbour an affection for him and his straight-talking ways (probably true enough), and perhaps Joyce smells the blood in the water over Turnbull's abysmal polling in the past few months. Turnbull didn't exactly have Rudd, or Julia Gillard, on the ropes in the second half of 2008, did he?

Let's face it, the Liberals-National coalition isn't exactly brimming over with credible leadership choices right now. They've got Turnbull, Joe Hockey and Barnaby Joyce, and that's about it.

Unless, of course, they all come to their sense and bring back Brendan "We've Lost Your Son's Body" Nelson.

John Howard Happy That Al Qaeda's Prayers Have Been Answered



After accepting his Medal Of Freedom from President Bush, ex-Australian prime minister, John Howard, described his happiness that Al Qaeda got what he believed they wanted.

“There is no doubt it is an historic moment for the United States to have for the first time a president who is an African-American and it must be a wonderful thing if you are that part of that section of this country to feel at long last one of your own has been chosen for the highest office," Mr Howard said at a media conference.

“People want him to succeed; I want him to succeed.’’

Obviously he's talking about Barack Obama, but when John Howard doesn't like somebody, he consistently refuses to say their name, even when speaking at length about them. The name "Obama" did not leave Howard's lips during his post-decoration press conference.

Here's what Howard had to say about the possibility of Barack Obama winning the presidency of the United States, within hours of Obama's official announcement, in February 2007 :

"I think that will just encourage those who want to completely destabilise and destroy Iraq, and create chaos and a victory for the terrorists to hang on and hope for an Obama victory."

"If I were running al-Qaeda in Iraq, I would...be praying as many times as possible for a victory not only for Obama but also for the Democrats."

Howard will only say this, now :

“But you say a lot of things to get a point across and I don’t think there is anything served by revisiting it,’’ Mr Howard said.

Here's how President Bush described John Howard, and why he was rewarding Howard for his "loyalty", along with two other "loyal" former leaders, including the already all but forgotten Tony Blair :

“They are the sort of guys who look you in the eye, and tell you the truth and keep their word.”

John Howard gave his word to Bush that Australia would send troops to a War On Iraq within days of the September 11 terror attacks. He didn't bother telling the Australian public that he had committed Australian troops to fight in the Iraq War until the eve of the war itself.

Howard yesterday on Iraq :

“I think it is fair to say that President Bush was right and most of his critics were wrong,’’ saying thanks to the surge there was a reasonable prospect of an “Iraqi version of democracy”.

One of the main reasons why the so-called 'troop surge' succeeded was the implementation of a program where the most deadly of Iraqi insurgents were paid, handsomely, not to kill American troops. Those who we were told were "terrorists!" were rewarded for their ability to slay Australian, American and British soldiers. They didn't negotiate with these terrorists, they just handed them big bags of cash.

On the value of the Medal Of Freedom, a letter from the Sydney Morning Herald :

My father, Murray Tindale, was one of about 12 Australian servicemen who received a Medal of Freedom (which I still have) from President Truman after World War II.

My father, who spoke fluent Japanese, received his medal for his service with the 158th Regimental Combat Team, including "successfully handling over 600 prisoners of war during the Luzon campaign" in 1945.

I have the newspaper cutting listing the famous Australians, such as General Frank Berryman and Lieutenant-General Sir Leslie Morshead, who bravely served their country when Australia was in peril. These are normally the sort of people who are awarded this very high honour by the US.

To present the Medal of Freedom to John Howard denigrates the award, its holders and their achievements.

Gretel Woodward Watsons Bay

CNN tells the truth that most Australian TV news simply will not :




(via Grods comments)

13 Year Old Girl Punches Out Five Metre Shark



Nature's War On Humans hits another major setback. Thanks to 13 year old Hannah Mighall, even teenagers now know that the deadliest living arsenal Nature has to keep us out of its oceans can be beaten, and humiliated :

"We were just surfing and (Hannah) was probably five or 10 metres out in front of me," he said.

"The next thing I know she screamed and disappeared under the water.

"She came up and was fighting the shark and hitting it and screaming 'help me, help me, help me'. We didn't see it coming.

"It grabbed her surfboard and dragged that under and she still had her leg rope on and it dragged her under again.

"She kept it together. There was blood everywhere and I didn't know whether it was going to try and bite her again.

"She's 13 years old. She made me very proud. She gave me the strength to stay there with her in the water - when I saw the way she was fighting it off.

"She was scared but she fought it off. She wasn't going to let it beat her.

"I was stunned - I didn't know what to do. She was the one who pulled me through it. She's the hero. She's my hero."

More here

Hannah hasn't changed her mind about her planned career : marine biologist.

Now we know that teenage girls can take on five metre white pointers, and win, we can't be too far away from the creation of a breathtaking new Australian sport : deep water, bare-handed shark fighting. More action packed than koala wrestling and kangaroo polo.



UPDATE : More shark attacks and more Australians fight back against the so-called lions of the sea. It's time to remake Jaws, but with Australians launching themselves into the water to go one on one, fist versus snout :

A snorkeller has suffered 40 puncture wounds to his leg and abrasions to his hand after he punched a shark that was biting him.

The 23-year-old man was snorkelling under the Windang Bridge about 10.45am when he felt a tug on his leg, a NSW Ambulance spokeswoman said.

He turned around to see a flurry of white water and "punched at a brown shape", believed to have been a bull shark.

Legendary shark hunter Vic Hislop' has a theory about the spate of recent Shark Vs Human attacks and it screams out "Make Me Into A Movie!" Sharks are, according to Hislop, running low on their usual diet of assorted varieties of sea kittens, and view humans are "an alternative food source" :

Mr Hislop said 200 years of over-fishing Australian waters had turned the attention of big sharks to "gentler" prey such as dugong, turtles and dolphins.

"That's what's in their stomach now every day," he said on Macquarie Radio today.

"As the turtles disappear, which is inevitable, and the dugong herds disappear, humans are next in line on the food chain.

"It will definitely get worse."

Boring experts dismiss Hislop's theory :

But Tarango Zoo shark biologist John West rejected the claim saying if any species behaviour was changing it was humans.

He said there may have been a rise in the number of shark sighting but that was only because more people were spending more time in the water.

Population increases and wetsuits that allow people to swim through the colder months would increase the chance of someone coming into contact with a shark.

"It may sound logical that over-fishing would lead to more attacks but it has no basis in fact," he said.

As long as the sharks believe that, too.

A (mostly) native garden in Springwood, Blue Mountains, Australia - January 10.



























All photos by Darryl Mason

John Pilger On The Gaza Genocide

Australian journalist, and decades-long veteran war correspondent, John Pilger, remains one of the most internationally respected and best-selling non-fiction writers this country has ever produced, and yet no Australian daily newspaper will publish his work. Not one. He's a journalist who he can premiere his latest documentary in Sydney and Melbourne and pull audiences numbering in the thousands, but Pilger is effectively black-banned by the mainstream Australian media.

Are stories like this the reason why?

For what happens in Gaza is the defining moment of our time, which either grants the impunity of war criminals the immunity of our silence, while we contort our own intellect and morality, or gives us the power to speak out. For the moment I prefer my own memory of Gaza: of the people's courage and resistance and their "luminous humanity," as Karma Nabulsi put it.

On my last trip there, I was rewarded with a spectacle of Palestinian flags fluttering in unlikely places. It was dusk and children had done this. No one told them to do it. They made flagpoles out of sticks tied together, and a few of them climbed on to a wall and held the flag between them, some silently, others crying out. They do this every day when they know foreigners are leaving, believing the world will not forget them.

Read The Full Story Here

One Beer-Battered Sea Kitten And Chips, Please

It's an obvious ruse to get the millions of Australian cat owners to start thinking about donating to PETA. It has to be. It's too insane to be anything other than an indirect marketing campaign to convince cat lovers (who traditionally couldn't care less about most other animals) that PETA are their kind of people :

Outspoken animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is using the "sea kitten" name as part of its push to restrict fishing.

"Nobody would hurt a sea kitten!" the group says on its website.

Don't be too sure about that. And why just fish? What about crabs, oysters and lobsters? They will need renaming as well. Some suggestions :

Lobsters : Ocean Bunnies

Crabs : Sand Koalas

Oysters : Water Squirrels

For the Japanese market, clearly whales need to be renamed Sea Pandas.

The (PETA) website features images of fish with cats' whiskers and ears.

Yes, it really does.

PETA is using the campaign to entice people to sign a petition calling on the US Fish and Wildlife Service to stop promoting "the hunting of sea kittens (otherwise known as fishing)".

For many, renaming fishing as "the hunting of sea kittens" will only encourage loading up the rod and reel and hitting the open water.

Nobody Knows How Many Surveillance Cameras There Really Are In Sydney

Now storage of digital video is becoming less of a problem, and far less expensive, just where will all the surveillance footage from today end up in five or ten years time? What will video data-miners and image analysis software one day be able to learn from footage of you, as you go about your business tomorrow?

We are city under a blanket of surveillance cameras and CCTV :

Even the experts are unsure how many (cameras) are in place.

"It is very hard to get numbers,'' Dr Don Weatherburn from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research said.

At the heart of Sydney's extensive surveillance network is theso-called Situation and Emergency Control Room.

It is located in a room reached through a through a maze of corridors, security doors and an inconspicuous office kitchen and it resembles a scene from a science fiction movie.

....up to six operators watched Sydney's streets via 16 screens displaying footage from up to 2200 cameras.

The surveillance Holy Grail is, of course, to have all the CCTV, from police, councils, motorways, red light cameras, train and bus cameras, 7-11s, shopping malls, all accessible from a central database. It won't be far away, as police and councils now already share surveillance footage.

There is no escape :

People sometimes tried to run from the cameras (and the police), security operations manager Alex Kennedy said.

"But they're pretty puffed before they get out of our camera range,'' he said.

"And tricking operators by running into a bar and out the back door into an alley in Chinatown would not get them very far either.

"The camera is already waiting for them there.''

Surveillance cameras do stop some crime :

The studies included in his review showed CCTV had a modest but significant effect on crime prevention with most effect in reducing vehicle crimes in car parks.

However, evaluations of CCTV in city and town centres showed mixed results. Dr Weatherburn said there hadn't been significant investigation of their effectiveness.

People are still getting their heads kicked in waiting for a taxi in the city at2am, but now there is footage for the evening news to show.

There is only minor evidence, at best, that putting people under total surveillance stops them committing crimes. State and federal governments love camera surveillance because they believe it allows them to employ less police and commit less resources in general to crime fighting.

Yes, we do have less police on the streets, but look at all the cameras we have watching you getting assaulted!

Soon it will be even cheaper and easier than ever before for all surveillance footage of people committing no crimes at all to be archived, forever. There will be a market for all that old footage. It will be digitally archived, and eventually sold on to companies who will use body/gait/face-matching technology to identify and lock in on individuals through millions of hours of archived footage, and data-mine it all.

Perhaps somewhere in the future, someone may be willing to spend a few grand to find out where you were and what you were doing on January 17, 2009, or April 29, 2011. Perhaps they may want to see all the vid of you commuting on those days, buying lunch, drinking with friends, where you drove, how you spent your time away from the office, or in the office itself.

People forced to have surveillance cameras installed in their homes for 24 hour monitoring purposes will soon happen so often it will become a non-news event.

Is a life lived under surveillance, of being aware of always being on camera, being constantly watched, really living at all? If you are not breaking the law, don't you have the right to not be under surveillance?

If you live and work in Sydney, privacy is a myth.

The surveillance camera's mortal enemy is the humble Post-It note :

Insatiable Inflatables

It's always good to see Australia making international headlines :

'Australian Police Hunt Blow-Up Sex Doll Bandit'

I have some online friends in the US, UK, Russia and China and we occasionally trade 'Most Embarrassing But Funny National Headlines' with each other. The intention being to find the most amusingly deviant stories about each other's countries.

It's stunning how often Australia wins.

It's Not "War", It's Just Another 'War On Terror' Massacre

By Darryl Mason

The savage slaughter of hundreds of civilians in Gaza is now so obvious, so horrific, that even some of the Murdoch media can't pretend it's not happening.

From the news.com.au and Daily Telegraph online front pages at 1.30am today :



The story.

It's pretty obvious why they don't have this story open for comments. The disgust felt by most Australians at what is being done to the Palestinian people in Gaza grows by the day, as Israel kills more than 500 men, women and children in nine days of artillery attacks, tank assaults and gunship strafing.

And finally, Rudd voices his outrage - well, not really - at the relentless slaying of children by an Australian ally engaging in acts of brutal terrorism and collective punishment :

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Israel must meet its humanitarian obligations to the people of Gaza.

"Australia recognises Israel's right to self-defence while we call on all parties to avoid any actions which result in unnecessary suffering or increased suffering on the part of innocent civilians,'' he said.

Israel had to meet its humanitarian obligations under international law and ensure people in Gaza had access to basic goods, food, humanitarian assistance and medical supplies.

Mr Rudd said a diplomatic solution should halt the rocket attacks against Israel "by the terrorist organisation Hamas'' and stop arms shipments into Gaza.

It should also bring about the opening of the Gaza crossings, involve an immediate ceasefire and "form part of a longer term compact involving Israel and Palestine, based on a two-state solution".

Meanwhile, the Daily Telegraph's Piers Akerman, who has been busted plagiarising Israeli Army press releases and propaganda and publishing it under his own byline, pathetically tries to tamper the growing disgust at Israel's mass killings by not mentioning the outrageous death toll, already beyond 500 people, at all. He describes "collateral damage" as "a small bonus."

Like Akerman, The Sydney Morning Herald, supposedly an Israel-hating organ of Evil Pagan Lefties, sees no reason to mention all those dead kids, and in the below online front page pic shows Israel Army missiles and artillery shells on a report about Hamas rockets being fired into Israel. Just another editorial mistake, presumably :



From the on-the-spot report, where Israeli locals appeared more upset by car alarms than the Hamas rocket hit :

Looking at the raw numbers - more than 10,000 Qassams fired in the past six years and 19 people killed - the rockets do not appear all that effective.

Wonder why would that be? This is what a Qassam rocket looks like :



These rockets are not being smuggled in from Iran, or whatever bullshit claims are now circulating in the media, these are homemade weapons. They are ineffective at killing because as far as military grade missiles go, they are utter shit, they don't even rate. They are effective at scaring the hell out of thousands of Israelis, but not quite as effective as the terror that comes from helicopters gunships unloading into Gaza apartment blocks, and blowing up mosques while women and children are praying inside.

Why does the Australian media so religiously follow the Israeli propaganda line that what is now going on in Gaza is "War"? Homemade rockets against the best gunships and weapons of mass destruction that American, British and Australian tax dollars help to buy is not "War" by even the loosest definition.

To quote HG Wells, it's like bows and arrows against the lightning.

Australia All But Silent On Ally Terror Attacks Killing 80 Children

The Australian government believes the "strategic bombing" of Gaza is acceptable.

This is "strategic bombing" (images from Flickr) :













Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was too busy over the weekend to explain how he feels about an Australian ally using indiscriminate terrorism to collectively punish the Palestinian people in Gaza, for the actions of their democratically elected government. State terror attacks that have killed more than 400 people, including at least 80 children, wounding thousands more in nine days.

Kevin Rudd was at the cricket, laughing it up with Tim Blair.

"Good Afternoon, This Is Your Captain Speaking, You May Be Feeling Some Slight Turbulence As Our Automatic Pilot Has Been Disabled By Military Radio Transmissions...."

It's weird and unnerving enough that it's happened once, that we know of, now it's happened again, the second time in twelve weeks :

A malfunction has forced a Qantas jet to return to Perth, prompting concerns for the second time in three months that interference from a defence station in northwestern Australia may be to blame for a mid-air drama on the national carrier.

Qantas flight 71 was on route to Singapore with 277 passengers about 8.30am last Saturday when it had to return to Perth after the jet's autopilot disconnected because of a problem with a unit that supplies key information to flight control computers.

Aircraft engineer Peter Marosszeky said yesterday it was possible that interference from radio transmitters at the station could have caused the malfunction in both incidents.

Apparently, the radio transmisison signals from the Exmouth defence station can travel 260 nautical miles. A few more details.

"These signals are supposed to travel around the world to reach submarines in the water and naval vessels, so they are very powerful..."

The Defence Department would not comment yesterday.

What could they possibly say? Err, whoops.

Bondi Beach, January 2008

Photos By Darryl Mason

Nine seconds later :