This may be the furthest south any group has landed, to put it in perspective, if it was the east coast they would have been landing just south of Brisbane.

So I thought id take the opportunity to have a poke at an Australian Senator, the man who described dismantling the old system (which saw refugee boat arrivals at single digits) as his “moment of “greatest satisfaction”.

Good day, this may come across as a little gloating but Im just mailing to inform you I told you so.

Some years ago now you called for submissions into the detention/refugee system, I put in a submission based on 5 years of working in the detention field and seeing its failings and traps.
You were the minister responsible at the time, I initially hoped your inquiry might be a genuine one. Silly i know.

My submission was rejected on the grounds my “information was out of date” and similar tosh.
I responded and received a borderline rude dismissal.

So here comes my gloat, nearly EVERY thing you did which has hurt your government with regards to immigration could have been easily avoided if you had been less of a fool and actually taken submissions from people who had seen the previous fuck ups and successes.

Your own ideological stupidity and arrogance made a rod for your own parties back. Your “greatest satisfaction” has become just one of your governments signature failures. If you have any ounce of intellectual curiosity I could still give you a workable solution to you asylum impasse gathered from years of talking with refugees themselves. But hey, you know better don’t you mate?

I currently live in Geraldton, as you may be aware we had a boatload turn up in the harbor here today.
Now I know you’ve moved on, your obvious stuff up notwithstanding, but just think of me as the slave who stood at Caesars ear whispering, “Respice te, hominem te memento” or “Look behind you, remember you are only a man”, some of us remember your past, even if you like to forget.
Yours, with ALL due respect.

*********

And i really mean all the respect due to him, probably slightly outweighed by a gnats pubic hair.

That giant baseball is flying straight towards Hugo’s head.

“Gracias Presidente Venezuela Campeón!” translates to “Thanks President Venezuela Champion!” on a billboard put up by political brown nosers in the City of Caracas in 2006 (trusting my memory, I think it was the City of Caracas but I can’t tell if the logo on the lower left actually says it was Caracas).

It references the fact that Venezuela won baseball’s Caribbean Series (Serie del Caribe) in 2006. I can only assume that the city government of Caracas put up billboards in the years that a Venezuelan team didn’t win blaming Chavez for not wearing his baseball uniform.

But now, with Hugo Chavez dead, how will any Venezuelan baseball team ever win again? Don’t worry, they have a plan :

Hugo Chavez’s body will be preserved and forever displayed inside a glass tomb at a military museum not far from the presidential palace from which he ruled for 14 years, his successor announced Thursday in a Caribbean version of the treatment given Communist revolutionary leaders like Lenin, Mao and Ho Chi Minh.

Obviously, in order to win future baseball games they’ll dress mummified Hugo up in a baseball uniform for all to see and thank. When the Olympics roll around they’ll put him in a brightly colored unitard for weight lifting, speedos for swimming events, put him in riding boots & duct tape him atop a pony for equestrian sports, and dress him in sequined tights for ice skating.

I, for one, am thankful that other world leaders don’t get into a sport uniform to associate themselves with other people’s success. Imagine Angela Merkel or Gerhard Schröder squeezing into a short tennis skirt and putting photos of themselves on billboards because a German won a women’s tennis championship.

It is amazing (but not surprising) that a government had thought that it had nothing better to spend money on than a suck-up billboard when sending him (if a toady felt compelled to be sycophantic) a thank you card would have been less expensive and Chavez would have been more likely to see it.

I think this image was found years ago at Devil’s Excrement.

In previous pre-taxidermied Hugo Chavez news : Hugo Chavez thinks he is Obi Wan Kenobi.

We have a State election coming up here which just happens to coincide with tree pruning time (for power lines)

Was posted on facebook, but its the house I “stalked” with a post a few years back for being mung bean eating greenies with air cons and 3 4WDs in the driveway.

The sign

You may have heard mention of it or seen it at the time. It is … interesting. The BBC director general at the time said of it :

 he “would like to apologise to the viewers who were offended by it”.

He added that it was an inappropriate programme to broadcast live just two days after the suicide attacks on America, and should have been recorded and edited.
…
The BBC’s Media Correspondent, Nick Higham, said there was a recognition in the corporation that the audience could have been more representative of wider opinion.

Besides the shouting and jeering from the audience, there are a few points I’d like to highlight. Note the number of people (including the panelists) who attribute their own hobbyhorse as the cause of 9/11. Also, note some curious rhetorical techniques on display.

At about 21:29 (in the first clip), a guy says American & British aircraft flying over the skies of Iraq and Yugoslavia have done so in defense of Kurds, Iraqi Shia and muslims in Kosovo and is promptly jeered and shouted down. The counter arguments seems to be “You have no idea!”,  the idea that the only acceptable way to frame it is as killing muslims and that asserting things repeatedly makes it true.

At about 21:25 Yasmin Alibhai-Brown says to applause “I have been stunned by the way Americans are so shocked at how many people really truly detest them around the world.”

Speaking for myself, I don’t care if someone detests Americans. Oh, imagine the burden it must be to forever be wondering who a majority of Namibians consider to be their Super-Best-Friend-Forever. Treating global politics like high school cliques really doesn’t seem like the best way to determine policies.

Below the fold is parts 2 & 3 of the video and a transcript.

(The transcript’s timestamps are based on those printed at the top of the video.  A “______” in the transcript represents something said that I can’t make out. Presented here for future reference and those who can’t see the video.)

21:20
BBC Guy : But first here’s David Dimbleby with a special edition of Question Time. David.
David Dimbleby : Good evening. The full horror of Tuesday’s terrorist attacks is still sinking in as more and more gruesome details are being reported. Several hundred Britons are now feared dead and the question on many people’s minds is how the United States should respond and what role the United Kingdom and the NATO allies should play in that response. Arguments range from mounting all out war against terrorists and those who harbor them on the one hand and, on the other, examining the whole American strategy in the Middle East. So, with us here tonight to discuss these issues : Lord Ashdown the former leader of the Liberal-Democrats. Philip Lader who is the American ambassador here until February of this year. He served 4 years. Tam Dalyell, father of the house, the longest serving member and a critic of Western policy towards the Middle East and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown columnist for the Independent and, of course, our Question Time audience are going to be putting the questions tonight and the first one comes from Wally Bacari (sp.) who’s an administrator. Bacari (sp.)
21:21
audience member #1 Wally Bacari (sp.) : Thank you, good evening. And my question is to former ambassador Lader. In the midst of this carnage won’t a harder response provoke more um … won’t a harder response provoke more actions that will effect innocent lives?
David Dimbleby : So a hard response will provoke more violence. I’ll come to Mr. Lader in a moment. Paddy Ashdown, what’s your answer there?
Paddy Ashdown : Yes it could. Um, and I think that’s a matter we have to bear very carefully in mind. I mean, one thing is clear : after Tuesday nothing is ever going to be the same again. The Era of the superpower, alone, invincible and inviolate is gone. We’re now into the era of globalized power and globalized terror to match it and to the extent to which we are able to combat this will be measured by the extent to which we are able to act internationally and multilaterally; not unilaterally. The second point is the one you identified precisely, Mr Bacari (sp.) If we mishandle this I, I fear it’s not impossible to see this as the first in the chain of events that leads this to war between nations. Maybe not ourselves, but in the regions that are effected. We need to bear in mind one fact when deciding what to do and that fact is this : What was the aim of the terrorists? The aim of the terrorists was to provoke us into overreaction in exactly the same way as Israel has been provoked into overreaction by suicide bombers in their cities. And the…
(applause)
Paddy Ashdown : provoke… provoke… to provoke us into deepening the instability in those areas that they want to see war and conflict and the extent to which our actions result in that outcome will be the extent to which they continue to win and they continue to lose.
David Dimbleby : Is there a danger of that happening do you believe?
Paddy Ashdown : Well, intemperate action, I mean, ambassador Lader said today that he hoped his government – he believed his government would act in a measured proportionate and a precisely targeted way and I hope that is right. In this sense this is a war for all of us. I don’t like the overuse of the word war exactly but this is a conflict for all of us and one we must win and in this sense the United States and the United States President now acts as a leader, not just for the United States, but for the whole world. The most precious asset that we have is that coalition of revulsion that has now sprung up across the world including in places where are not normally allies for the United States. And that must be maintained.
21:23
David Dimbleby : Okay, I’m going to the man in the back there with the spectacles. I want to get as many people as I can in. And, you sir.
audience member #2 : _______ these days you keep using the word “war”?  Who are you fighting with? This Lim Baden (aka Osama Bin Laden -ed.) or whatever his name was is not unheard of _______ of any country. Is a Saudi Arabian who live in Afghanistan.
David Dimbleby : So, if we’re declaring war who are we declaring it against?
audience member #2 : Who are you going to be killing? Innocent people.
(applause)
David Dimbleby : Philip Lader. Philip Lader.
21:24
Philip Lader : I want to respond to both questions if I can. I think there is great truth in your point. As Paddy suggested there it is my view, just as one citizen, that the response must be purposeful, measured and proportionate. The difficulty is we should not – even though the Secretary of State has indicated who the leading candidate, as culprit, might be – we should not rush to judgement. Until it’s established with certainty who is to blame.
(applause)
Philip Lader : but at that point, not simply as an act of retribution, but also as a means of prevention of further atrocities the United States, I believe as a citizen, should take appropriate, measured, purse-purposeful, proportionate response
(crosstalk)
David Dimbleby : Those adjectives are fine but what do they actually mean in terms of what you do?
Philip Lader : That has to be determined once you decide what the target is, what is the group
David Dimbleby : (interrupting) would you rule anything out? Would you rule out an invasion of Afghanistan? Would you be prepared to see that?
Philip Lader : The advice…
David Dimbleby : (interrupting) Land troops in Afghanistan.
Philip Lader : The advice given to our president will be across this entire range. Those who are motivated by anger or believe that huge volume of response is necessary to those who believe that simply a law abiding judiciary proceeding is what’s appropriate. But I believe though I must say that with the seasoned veterans surrounding this president we are most likely to have what is a deliberative, rational process of determining that response
David Dimbleby : Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, do you think that can be achieved?
21:25
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown : I’m not sure. I think some of the rhetoric that is coming out – of course it’s understandable I mean what has happened is, is impossible, um, to cope with even as –from this distance. But I think there are certain things that Americans – and I do make a distinction between America and Americans – I think Americans are going to have to look at a lot of new realities. I have been stunned by the way Americans are so shocked at how many people really, truly detest them around the world. I think this is…
(applause)
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown : something that should worry all of us, right? I think, in part, as you know, as some groups have demonized Americans as much as Americans have demonized us but
21:26
David Dimbleby : (interrupting) I want to stop you; but what you’re saying, hold on a second We’re going to come to that in a moment
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown : But what I did
David Dimbleby : Can you just answer the specific question about action and about whether it’s possible
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown : The action has got to take these facts into account. You can’t just go out there and storm. I think you have to be measured and accurate but also some of these lessons have got to talked about before any action is taken
David Dimbleby : do you think there should be any military action of any kind or would you prefer to see nothing done
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown : Once we know. Once we know. Once we really know. Yes, I think some action will have to be taken
David Dimbleby : the woman in pink there. Can’t hear you sorry
audience member #3 : the panel’s briefly talked about America wanting to establish blame before they actually take action but how long does the panel think Americans will wait before blame is established
David Dimbleby : Tam Dalyell
Tam Dalyell : In the case of Lockerbie blame takes a very long time. But, you know, if innocent people are killed just because of a feeling that we must do something that will make the situation worse and not better.
(applause)
Tam Dalyell : Those
(applause)
21:28
Tam Dalyell : If innocent people are killed there is one group who will be delighted Bin Laden and his like and why? Because Arab sympathy, genuine Arab sympathy with the United States will simply evaporate when there is innocent, gratuitous loss of life : collateral damage or call it what you will.
David Dimbleby : Alright, I take your point. Woman in the third row from the back there and then I’m going to move on to the next question. You madam.
Audience Member #4 : What scares me about the use of the word “war” at the moment is… um… the grim task of counting the dead is still not finished in America. How can we as a… um, a democratic nation justify killing other mothers, fathers, children of another nation?
(applause)
David Dimbleby : Let me ask quite simply if anybody in the audience disagrees with that point of view and believes America should act and act swiftly. You sir, on the left here.
Audience Member #5 : Americans have been innocently killed, Tam Dalyell. You always come on the side of the terrorists and have done for years.
Tam Dalyell : no
(rumbling from the audience)
Tam Dalyell : That I refute. I simply point out that when President Bush says that this is the first war of the 21st century it’s not so. (smattering of applause) A war has been going on for ten years of the daily bombing of Iraq.
(applause and hoots from the audience)
21:29
Tam Dalyell : Now, maybe it’s the brothers and sisters of these people who are the recruits that evil men, like Bin Laden, like to exploit. These are very unpalatable facts that better be addressed.
David Dimbleby : Ok, the man in the front row there.
Audience Member #6 (man in stars & stripes tie) : reason why there’s, uh, British and American pilots are risking their lives is to defend the Kurds in northern Iraq and to defend the Shia muslims of southern Iraq who are in danger from Saddam Hussein. We remember Halabja (the poison gas attack on Kurds -ed) I think we should thank the Americans for defending muslims not only in Iraq but also in Kosovo
(audience gets restless)
Audience Member #7 : mean killing. You mean killing
Audience Member #6 (man in stars & stripes tie) : No, no, no, no
Audience Member #7 : (unclear what is said)
Audience Member #6 (man in stars & stripes tie) : The American are defending muslims in Iraq, they’re defending muslims in Kosovo
(a smattering of audience applause and increasing audience shouting)
Audience Member #7 (woman in tan headscarf) : They’re killing them!
Audience Member #6 (man in stars & stripes tie) : (crosstalk) they set up the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinians wouldn’t have a
David Dimbleby : Hold on, let…
Audience Member #6 (man in stars & stripes tie) : They defended the muslims in Kuwait…
Audience Member #8 (woman in blue shirt) : they do not!
David Dimbleby : …finish his point
Audience Member #8 (woman in blue shirt) : Don’t you dare speak on behalf of the muslims. Don’t you dare speak on behalf of the muslims! You have no idea! You have no idea! You have no idea!
Audience Member #6 (man in stars & stripes tie) : why don;’t you …the Russians … Why don’t you attack the Russians when they launch an all out assault on the Chechens based on a terrorist act
Audience Member #8 (woman in blue shirt) : We did!
Audience Member #6 (man in stars & stripes tie) : I never heard you. I never heard you. The left is silent when it comes to Russia. Silent when it comes to Russia. Silent when it’s the Chinese persecuting…
(lots of crosstalk in above)
David Dimbleby : Stop! Stop! Stop!
David Dimbleby : Sir, you made your point. You made your point. Wait.
Audience Member #8 (woman in blue shirt) : Americans or British
David Dimbleby : Will you be quiet. Will you be quiet. It’s all right. Would you like just to make your point
Audience Member #8 (woman in blue shirt) : …my Arab and muslim colleagues. I’m an Anglo-Arab born and raised in Britain and we never condone violence or killings of Americans or Brits. We don’t… Our friends our being killed. In New York we have friends we have relatives being killed and we’ve been also victims of attacks, I mean, from Sudan to Libya to Palestine. So we, more than anyone else, and in Palestine know what it means to be killed.
21:31
David Dimbleby : ok,
Audience Member #8 (woman in blue shirt) : (unclear)
David Dimbleby : I want to take
Audience Member #8 (woman in blue shirt) : I don’t, I didn’t… I don’t appreciate this gentleman with the American tie…
David Dimbleby : You’ve made your point
Audience Member #8 (woman in blue shirt) : thank you
David Dimbleby : I want… I want …
(shout from audience)
David Dimbleby : Nope, I want to have a question from Charles Pfennig (sp.) who’s a facilities operator to take this argument on. Mister Pfennig.
Audience Member #9 (Charles Pfenning) : Good evening. Um, Paddy spoke of the dangers of overreacting, does the panel think that Britain should join America in whatever course of action America now takes?
David Dimbleby : Philip Lader.
Philip Lader : I will come back to that in a moment…
David Dimbleby : Well, why not answer it straight
Philip Lader : I’ll answer straight then
Audience Member #9 (Charles Pfenning) : Whatever
Philip Lader : Terrific moderator isn’t he?
(crowd laughter and something unclear said)
21:32
Philip Lader : For the prime minister to have stepped forward forthrightly and immediately in solidarity with the United States is something which we Americans is not only something which we Americans appreciate but is very meaningful. For Lord Robertson and NATO to have taken the action to demonstrate the profound consensus. What we’re starting to see is the marshaling of public opinion by President Bush around the world but I want to say in that context in response to your point. I know of no religion or no nationality that has a monopoly on fanaticism and it is a huge error, it is a colossal error…
(applause)
Philip Lader : for any of us to identify the acts or potential acts of fanatics with the people at large.
(brief applause)
21:33
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown : Philip, can I just say the last 2 or 3 days it has been rather astonishing and depressing to watch, um, Mr Rubin(?), for example, talking in a language of civilization that…
(applause)
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown : it wasn’t… absolutely not acceptable. You know, the man who blew up the Oklahoma bomb was American and very uncivilized…
(applause)
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown : and I don’t think it helps to have somebody saying again and again, repeatedly, that the civilized live in the United States and the rest of the world is a…
(applause)
David Dimbleby : (interrupts) Well, hold on, just the
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown : just very bad.
David Dimbleby : People may not know Mr Rubin but, uh, the foreign Secretary Jack Straw said that this was an attack on civilization. You don’t like him saying that?
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown : I don’t like it. I think Tony Blair has been brilliant, measured, very careful not to say that kind of thing and I think he’s done very well
David Dimbleby : Tam Dalyell.
Tam Dalyell : The lady in blue who’s Anglo-Arab raised the question of the Sudan. Do you remember that there was the attack on the Al-Shifa Factory supposedly a chemical warfare factory. It turned out to be nothing of the kind and the attack was a huge error. Doesn’t that teach us that we ought to be very certain before launching military action against a specific place
(applause)
21:34
David Dimbleby : Paddy Ashdown, if I could, If I could bring you back to the question. The question was whether Britain should stand with America in whatever course of action America now takes.
Paddy Ashdown : I suppose you’d admonish me if I answered any of the others as well but I’ll come back to that in a second. The answer to the question should Britain back any action of the United States the answer is obviously no. Nor are…
(applause)
Paddy Ashdown : Nor, nor are we required to do so. My view is that so far President Bush has handled this with very considerable skill and a very great degree of, um, rationality and I hope that’s what will continue. Ah, Britain’s role however has been absolutely vital, I think,
————— end of part 1 —————
21:35
Paddy Ashdown : in as, ah, Phil said helping and encouraging that process. I think personally that it was right that NATO should invoke article 5 of the NATO constitution for the first time ever. Because the fear in this was that what the United States might do is to retreat into isolationism and unilateralism action and by showing the United States there was an alternative way forward we actually opened up the possibility of a multilateral reaction, international reaction to this …which is, uh, as Phil has said is beginning to grow across the world and that is the most valuable asset we have but and it is a very big but the provisions of NATO – the principles of NATO – are twofold. One is solidarity but the other is consultation. And with the solidarity that we have expressed comes the right to expect consultation. NATO says we stand together but we consult together first and provided that principle is followed and we use the NATO solidarity to grow and maintain the wider asset that we have of support across the world I think it is possible let us at least entertain the thought that what happens is we do not have to use military action but in effect these people are given up to the best solution which is that they should stand trial before the eyes of the world in a court of justice
(smattering of applause)
21:36
David Dimbleby : but you’re assuming then that… You’re assuming…you’re saying America shouldn’t act unless there’s unanimity in NATO or not?
Paddy Ashdown : No, I didn’t. I didn’t say that. I didn’t say that. It is open to America or any coalition to act in preservation of their own self defense if they wish to do so and I want to make it clear that although I believe it is not impossible if we hold together that international, ah, consensus to make sure these people suffer the penalty in a court of law I do not exclude from future action the possibility of direct targeted and precise military action provided the evidence is there to make sure that it is at the right target provided it is precisely targeted and provided it carries the support of the majority of the consensus of nations who would support it.
David Dimbleby : Now, uh… Thank you. I want, I want to bring in a number of people now on what you think Britain should do and the degree to which you would like to see Britain supporting the American administration. The man in the green shirt there over on the left
21:37
Audience Member #10 (man in green shirt) : Britain has considerable experience with anti-terrorism measures from it’s period in Northern Ireland where, uh, in the early nineties the government opened clandestine links with the IRA to establish a dialogue. Does anyone on the panel think there’s any merit in the Americans or any other Western country attempting to open a dialogue with someone perhaps through Arab embassies or governments with whoever has perpetrated this atrocity to find out what is at the root of it and to try and resolve it by negotiated dialogue rather than just brute force and perhaps ignorance.
David Dimbleby : Philip Lader will you take that one
Philip Lader : I think it is mandatory that the president leave every option open to him and to the country and so I would not exclude that necessarily. Would that be popular in public opinion in America today? Certainly not. But I think the President, as Paddy indicated, has adroitly demonstrated that the response will be taking some time and be the result of deliberative process in which no option currently is excluded
21:38
David Dimbleby : the man in the green shirt I’ll come to you in a moment, the green shirt there
Audience Member #11 (man in jacket with green shirt) : I think Britain should back America 100%. America has done everything for ___________ They, they
(audience laughter)
Audience Member #11 (man in jacket with green shirt) : they defend democracy, they do, America is the right country forward. They defend this world. There’s a trouble America goes in first. Europe’s cowards : does nothing. Look at Britain, America the tie we have. You get these terrorists running around destroying ______ and they come to England to live.
David Dimbleby : So, you would… you would support any action that President Bush decided to take and think that the British government should support it?
Audience Member #11 (man in jacket with green shirt) : Yes totally and…
David Dimbleby : (interrupts) and what action actually would you like to see taken?
Audience Member #11 (man in jacket with green shirt) : Once you find out who it is I think you should go in hard and take him out.
(mixed jeers and applause from audience)
Audience Member #11 (man in jacket with green shirt) : No, they should. They should take him out…
21:39
Tam Dalyell : The man in the green shirt who urged dialogue is spot on. (applause) Because if you want to avoid another tragedy like Manhattan you’ve got to enter into  dialogue. If there’s massive retaliation; sure as nuts it’ll happen again.
David Dimbleby : ok, lets go, come on over here. On the right here. You sir in… with the pullover. I’ll come to you minute
Audience Member #12 (man in tan sweater) : I think terrorism is a global problem and it has to be a global solution. It’s very clear to me that there’s a need for retribution as well for the American people but I would say that the solution has to be a global one and given the history of America
Tam Dalyell : good (?)
Audience Member #12 (man in tan sweater) : um, uh, taking unilateral action to solve global problems I think it’s important that from here onwards seeing as we have a different world situation there should be a global response. World leaders should also step up to the plate and, uh, take an equal part consulting us.
21:40
David Dimbleby : Ok, the man in the yellow pullover there you sir. Yes
Audience Member #13 (man in yellow sweater) : directly on a point raised by, importantly by Lord Ashdown I want to know with what right or at least with what consistency can George W. Bush avail himself of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949 when even this year he has specifically dismissed for being 30 years old the ABM treaty as being irrelevant to USA’s needs? (one lone person applauding) If that wasn’t to complicated.
Paddy Ashdown : Well, I’m not sure the 2 are connected and I’m inclined to say may not be popular with you or perhaps other as well I’m not sure the ABM treaty isn’t being eroded by events, anyways and we need to think of other ways of preserving our peace. I mean, neither the ABM treaty nor the new missile defense would have prevented what happened on Thursday (he means Tuesday -ed) and I very much agree with the gentleman down here. We are moving into the era of globalized power, globalized capitalism, globalized satellite broadcasting, globalized crime, globalized drugs, globalized terrorism and unless we are prepared to move to where that power has gone, to have globalized institution and globalized governance and a global system of tackling terrorism we will never tackle it. That is the important point.
21:41
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown : (interrupting) Paddy, Paddy, Paddy, it has to be globalized. At the moment everything we call globalized is actually in the control of America and Europe
(applause)
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown : It has got to now… it has got to now , I mean America has now joined the real world in a very horrible way. But we have to now… the hubris of the US – this idea that America is the greatest country in the world – that has to be placed into the more modern reality we all have to share the space and it can not be real globalization when certain countries strut about thinking they’re better than everybody else
(applause)
Paddy Ashdown : fair enough
David Dimbleby : the gentleman in there. what were you saying you interrupted her I didn’t hear what you said
Audience Member #14 (man in black) : …strongest economy and sayin’ best in the world and everything else and it certainly weren’t on Tuesday and I think the reality is we all have to wake up to the fact yes there is global terrorism now and how do we deal with it. But ultimately we have to stand with America as to what’s happened
21:42
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown : (interrupting) sure
Audience Member #14 (man in black) : not once on this program has it been mentioned that tens of thousands of people we killed on Tuesday and
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown : (interrupting) I did. No, that’s not true
Audience Member #14 (man in black) : and the reality is Americans are
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown : (interrupting) that’s not true. I started by saying…
Audience Member #14 (man in black) : although we’ve had some 20 years of this it has been minor in comparison to what has happened on Tuesday and really we should go in some sense of reality not just for what happened in reality but what is going to happen again by a train or by a bus or whatever. and I think we need to grab a sense of that as well.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown : Sure.
David Dimbleby : I want to take another specific question from Ian Tungstead (sp.) who’s a marketing manager this is about the specifics and lets get back to the specifics now of what should be done. Ian Tungstead (sp.)
Audience Member #15 (man in tan jacket) : If the Taliban do not hand over, um, Osma Bin Laden (aka Osama -ed) for trial, um, should the allies then attack Afghanistan?
21:43
David Dimbleby : ok, assuming, assuming that uh um the Americans decide they have evidence against Bin Laden and he’s not handed over should the allies invade Afghanistan to capture him? Tam Dalyell.
Tam Dalyell : It depends on whether there would be agreement, for example, from Pakistan. Without Pakistan bases it would be extremely difficult to do so in that mountainous difficult terrain where the Russians came to such grief. There is a practicalities of it and it certainly couldn’t be done without killing many tens of thousands of innocent people.
David Dimbleby : ok
Audience Member #16 : (something indistinct)
David Dimbleby : yes
21:44
Audience Member #16 : the same thing applies very much to America on Tuesday when tens of thousands of people’s lives were put at risk and in addition to that and what seems to have been forgotten by this panel when we’re asked if we should support America is this : that we also have lost something like 500 people – innocent people – that had nothing to do with this at all. And if it’s a question of whether we should support America in being able to take action in response to that then I’m for supporting America and yes let’s take the rest of the world with us but let’s not forget that our people have been killed irrespective of everybody else around this world
Tam Dalyell : and what should the object of (crosstalk) no, no, what should the object of our reaction be? Surely, the prime object is to do everything we can to stop it happening again. (applause) Everyone in this room feels for those Americans but
David Dimbleby : you want to come back on that
Audience Member #16 : well, yes, i think anybody wouldn’t want this kind of work and danger and damage and sick pain being caused to anybody through out the world but what you’ve also got to remember : you are referring to things that happened 20 odd years ago how far have we actually got in this world today with stopping terrorism and what action or what plans are there for this world if you like for every country that there is to be involved in it. You honestly believe that people in the Eastern countries will sit round a table and discuss these issues without some kind of action being taken.
21:45
Audience Member #17 (unseen woman’s voice) : Why assume it was Arabs in the first place?Why assume it was Arabs in the first place?
Tam Dalyell : It’s not 20 years ago. it…
Audience Member #18 : (indistinct shouting)
Audience Member #17 : Why assume it was Arabs in the first place?
Audience Member #18 (man in glasses & tie) : __________ That is why we all have this problem… James Ruby maybe (James Rubin? -ed)
David Dimbleby : What, You’ve got the camera now. you’ve tried to get on for some time
Audience Member #18 (man in glasses & tie) : no, no, no, no, no, equal opportunity very it is a plan you all do! You see only one fourth of the population as Western civilization! James Ruby (Rubin? –ed.) does not distinction but _______ more than that everybody everything all destroyed! That is how you rule the world now.
David Dimbleby : ok… I go to the man at the back. Second… third row from the back. Yes. you.
Audience Member #19 : I think the ball is firmly in the court of the Taliban government I mean they know where, um,  Bin Laden is. They know, There are ways of doing it. it is their obligation, um, if they wanna have any sort of respect – they should have handed him over years ago – but it’s their obligation to hand him over now.
David Dimbleby : and if…
Audience Member #19 : and if they do not , and if they do not – and I shouldn’t hear that they cannot because they certainly can – if they do not then they should be prepared to suffer the consequences. now that should not mean the slaughtering, uh, of innocent women and children. We’ve had enough of that already. but
(audience shouting)
Audience Member #19 : uh, they should hand him over immediately otherwise they have to be prepared to face the consequences and I mean hard.
(smattering of applause)
David Dimbleby : Ok, Alibhai
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown : I think the whole Taliban regime needs to be looked at and we need to look at what’s going on to, y’know what’s being done to the people of Afghanistan there as well, it’s not just one man and what he’s done to the Americans. We have ignored what’s being going on in the Afghanistan for a long time so I agree with you we have to some action but there is a lot more going on in Afghanistan than just this one man.
David Dimbleby : Go on.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown : And we need… I think one of the things that worries me is that in this whole very emotional period that we only going to end up talking about what happened in the United States and not at… look at Taliban doing to its own people. That is also important.
(applause)
21:47
David Dimbleby : but, but but his point, we’ll come back to that in a moment, is that if the Taliban won’t hand over Bin Laden then force is legitimately used against …
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown : (interrupting) yes or sanctions or whatever it takes
David Dimbleby : force, including force
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown : yes
David Dimbleby : all right. you want to come back to it.
Audience Member #19 : I mean she says sanctions. well, I’m sorry we’re gonna have to get a bit sterner than that because they should have handed him over years ago because he did a bomb 2 years ago or 3 years ago and if it takes…
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown : Well, they been propped up! Taliban has been supported by American businessmen. We have to look at that.
(applause and an indistinct shout)
David Dimbleby : I want to take a question from Nick Halpin (sp.) who is a law student. Mr. Halpin (sp.)
Audience Member #20 : Does the bombing in America represent a failure in US foreign policy with millions and millions of people all around the world despising American nation?
(applause)
David Dimbleby : Philip Lader.
21:48
Philip Lader : I’ll respond to the last several question as I respond to you. President Bush has made it clear that once it is determined with certainty who is to blame that any nation which harbors such individuals shall also be held accountable…
(shouting from audience)
Philip Lader :I think he has been very clear. I would ask… add to that however that in the context of an analysis not only of technical intelligence matters, transportation security but of fundamental foreign policy in the coming weeks and months. Certainly as you suggest Jasmine we must be reflective on why there are these attitudes towards the United States
(someone in the audience yells something)
Philip Lader : but if I may
David Dimbleby : Let him speak
Philip Lader : if I may
David Dimbleby : he’s saying what you’re saying, I think
Philip Lader : but if I may… may I continue
David Dimbleby : I’ll bring you in. If you listen to him I’ll bring you in.
Philip Lader : but that is not a justification for any individual around this globe to celebrate what we’ve seen as the utter disregard (applause) for the sanctity of human life.
21:49
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown : I have to say something. Can I please?
David Dimbleby : (unclear)
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown : (interupting) Let me just say something because I think I feel so strongly about that . If it’s wrong to demonize muslims it is equally wrong to demonize Americans (smattering of applause) and I think it has become a sport and we shouldn’t allow this pain to, to, to sanction that kind of behavior. I think we all have to be reflective
David Dimbleby : (interrupting) Are you saying… Are you saying it’s not then a, a, a failure of American foreign policy…
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown : It is. It is.
David Dimbleby : …that’s led to this kind of action?
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown : It is both sides. It is absolutely right for Americans to look at why they are despised and look at themselves but it is also very important for muslims and others who too easily talk about “the Americans” as if you know there is this block thing that we are allowed to despise. That is wrong too.
(applause)
David Dimbleby : I said I’d come to you, yes
—————–end part 2—————–
David Dimbleby : I said I’d come to the gentleman there
Audience Member #21 : It’s very, very important that the events that took place on Tuesday result in America waking up to their policies in the Middle East. (light applause) Now, it’s not saying that that justifies what took place – no one is saying that justifies it but America for God’s sake wake up to what you are doing in the Middle East…
(applause)
Audience Member #21 : and when you wake up then you will solve the problem and you will prevent what happened on Tuesday. And that’s the only way really to do that.
21:50
David Dimbleby : Paddy Ashdown.
(shouts from audience)
Paddy Ashdown : Yeah Well, th-the truth is that I suppose it is a result of that and but lets just reflect, now I speak as somebody who has been pretty critical in the past about many aspects of American foreign policy but, um, the Americans have put themselves out front. They have arbitrated, tried to arbitrate peace, I don’t say they’ve done everything properly and right in the Middle East. They have been…
(shouting from the audience)
Paddy Ashdown : hang on, hang on, hang on. They have been and I don’t condone every action they’ve taken – nevertheless in the front line of seeking to negotiate peace in various areas not the least, for instance, in Bosnia. So of course they haven’t been right all the time but let us accept that one of the reasons why they are in the front line for terrorists who do not believe in democracy, who do not believe in liberty, who want to overturn the rule of law is precisely because the United States has been in the front line of fighting in favor of those things…
(applause)
Paddy Ashdown : and let’s at least understand that. David, there is another point, there is another point I wish to make directly in relation to the gentlemen down here and I speak as someone fought in 4 terrorist campaigns – against terrorists – including one in my own country in Northern Ireland. I know one thing is absolutely certain if you play the terrorist’s game by being provoked into overreaction you do not defeat terrorism you grow terrorism and that is why…
(applause)
Paddy Ashdown : and that is why, and that is why at this stage what we have to do is act very carefully and very precisely. Look, here is the bottom line : there is no defense against the determined terrorist. There is no defense against the determined terrorist who will pay with – seeks, wishes to pay with his lives – the moment that person has left their terrorist camp armed with a will to die and the weapons of mass destruction stopping him is a matter, chiefly, of luck. There is only one way you can cope with this and that is that you make it under international law illegal for a nation to harbor or give succor to terrorists.
(applause)
Paddy Ashdown : Now if out of this, if out of this comes a Geneva Convention which is against giving succor to terrorism, an international instrument. That is the way you squeeze this problem off and kill it at it’s source and that’s the action we have to take which is why this gentleman is right.
(audience is restless)
David Dimbleby : the gentlemen in the fourth row, you, yes you.
Audience Member #22 (woman in headscarf) : …mention that when President Bush talks about terrorist and those who harbor them did he and the American government consider that fact the world, uh, one of the reasons the world despises America because it sees Israel as a terrorist and America as one who harbors Israel as a terrorist. That should be considered. I’m talking about foreign policy again.
David Dimbleby : Phil Lader. Phil Lader would you like to answer that point.
21:53
Philip Lader : I- I have to share with you that I find it hurtful to me that one could suggest the majority of the world despised the United States. My parents were immigrants to the United States and I have to tell you that we have fought as a people and as a nation, as Paddy suggests, for the rule of law and I simply want to say that it saddens me how it’s possible on this night within 48 hours that one because (applause) that one because of the intensity of feeling on policy issues can frankly abstract
Audience Member #22 (woman in headscarf) : If I can interrupt…
Philip Lader : May I?
David Dimbleby : Let him finish.
Philip Lader :  …can abstract ourselves from the senseless human victimization and suffering that has occurred before us.
(applause)
21:54
Audience Member #22 (woman in headscarf) : I just want to… I just want to point out that it’s not true that we don’t feel anything but I think everyone will admit that within hours of this, uh, catastrophe it was the American government that started talking about war, started talking about culprits (audience shouting) I’m sorry. If Americans, if the American government was so concerned about causalities I’m sorry the government made me think about these things because they brought it up on public TV.
David Dimbleby : Alright, the woman on your left 2 away.
Audience Member #23 (woman in black shirt) : But, I’m sorry, but there’s 20 thousand, 30 thousand, 40 thousand casualties or more…
Audience Member #22 (woman in headscarf) : (interrupts) One million in Iraq…
David Dimbleby : Let her answer. Let her answer your question.
Audience Member #23 (woman in black shirt) : …buried under rubble who didn’t realize this was going to happen. They were going to work. They were normal people
(shouts from the audience)
Audience Member #23 (woman in black shirt) : they didn’t understand
Audience Member #22 (woman in headscarf) : 500 children in Iraq every month
Audience Member #23 (woman in black shirt) : Is it an eye for an eye? Does it
Audience Member #22 (woman in headscarf) : why is the American life worth more
Audience Member #23 (woman in black shirt) : it’s makes it no better
Audience Member #22 (woman in headscarf) : George Bush is talking about war, like he said
Audience Member #23 (woman in black shirt) : what is this I’m taking a
Audience Member #22 (woman in headscarf) : Is an American life more worth than a
Audience Member #23 (woman in black shirt) : No life is worth this
David Dimbleby : Listen, there is no way, there … will you take the microphone away please there is no way that you can argue with each other with one microphone we can’t hear what you’re saying. People at home can’t hear what you’re saying. (applause) So we’ll bring an end to it. And so I’ll come to the gentleman here in the pale blue shirt. Yes sir.
Audience Member #24 (man in blue shirt) : Hi. Well I had a different comment to make but i…
David Dimbleby : (interrupting) Alright, well make it.
21:55
Audience Member #24 (man in blue shirt) : I want to make this comment that y’know what I fear is most of all is that people will start turning against each other christians, muslims it’s happening in this room right now…
(applause)
Audience Member #24 (man in blue shirt) : and that is what we have to fight. We can’t fight terrorists with guns or bombs. We have to fight terrorism We have to fight it at its roots. We have to fight poverty, we have to fight racism, we have to fight what’s going on in this room! That’s what we have to fight! (applause)
David Dimbleby : Ok, and the man in red there. You sir. Yes, you sir.
Audience Member #25 (man in red sweater & glasses) : I think the trouble is, uh, we keep talking about the symptoms well I think the cause of all this is because the American all-mighty dollar keeps wanting to spread the American way to every single country.
(applause)
Audience Member #25 (man in red sweater & glasses) : and that…
David Dimbleby : Leave that. What is the action you think the American government should take?
Audience Member #25 (man in red sweater & glasses) : It’s got to talk. It’s very easy to be Rambo, let’s be Rambo go in, let’s send in Bruce Willis and kill everybody. (Rambo was played by Sylvester Stallone. Bruce Willis is known for Moonlighting and the Die Hard movies. sigh. –ed.) It’s absolutely ridiculous. You’ve got to talk!  Find out what these people are really thinking!
21:56
David Dimbleby : Ok, the man behind. You sir.
Audience Member #26 (man in black shirt) : I mean, why are there warships in the Persian Gulf?
David Dimbleby : I said, say again? What?
Audience Member #26 (man in black shirt) : Why are there warships in the Persian Gulf… already. I thought innocent unprov- innocent until proven guilty.
David Dimbleby : and the man there on the right. You sir with your hand up. No, no, no this man here. In the white shirt, no? You yes you in the black tie.
Audience Member #27 (man in black tie) : well I think it’s appalling that um … I think it’s just appalling that you’re all supporting terrorists and that I think none of you…
(applause and jeering)
Audience Member #27 (man in black tie) : hold on a minute, that none of you
David Dimbleby : I don’t think you’ve been listening
Audience Member #27 (man in black tie) : No, no just one minute. none of us would be able to sit here and express our views as freely as we do if it wasn’t for the sacrifices made by British and American servicemen…
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown : (interrupting) and Indians and Africans
Audience Member #27 (man in black tie) : I think that’s a very important point
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown : (interrupting) and Indians, Africans and muslims there all for it
Audience Member #27 (man in black tie) : We have values, the point I’m making is…
David Dimbleby : What, what do you want to see the American administration and the British government do at this point?
21:57
Audience Member #27 (man in black tie) : I don’t think there is anyone in this room who would want a disproportionate response because that would bring us down to their level which is not what we want to do but that doesn’t mean that we can negotiate as Tam Dalyell says. There’s no negotiation with terrorists because… and some people ask what do these people really want? There’s been a declaration of war by Osama Bin Laden and other people
(jeers and shouts from the audience)
Audience Member #27 (man in black tie) : against America . I’m sorry
(shouts from audience)
Audience Member #27 (man in black tie) : I’m sorry he did… hold on a second
David Dimbleby : hold on, let him … don’t shout him down
Audience Member #27 (man in black tie) : hold on a second…
David Dimbleby : Don’t shout him down. You had your say. Let (something unclear)
Audience Member #27 (man in black tie) : there is a conflict of values between our values which we should prize and defend if we have to which is freedom under the law – Paddy Ashdown was saying it – sanctity for human life and respect for other people and there are other people here in this room but go to many countries around the world like Iraq and so on where you can not express yourself freely
David Dimbleby : Alright
Audience Member #27 (man in black tie) : now we’re defending that freedom
David Dimbleby : Alright, we have to stop. our time is up and my apologies to those of you who haven’t been able to get in but my thanks to you for coming. My thanks to all the panel here. This ends this special edition of Question Time.

—————–end part 3—————–

 
btw, does anyone know which episode of Question Time had panelists and/or the audience declare that Anders Breivik and his ilk must be negotiated with, mention that Breivik’s act of mass murder was a result of the Norwegian Labor Party policies and discuss why Norwegian teenagers are so despised and/or detested?

Its the story of a young man pushing back the boundaries of science in his quest for knowledge, pyrotchnics and human endurance.

But seriously how can you go past a front page like this one…

Genius, pure genius.

A few choice highlights from the reporting.

A MAN who suffered serious burns when friends lit a firecracker in his bum says he was just showing his visiting mates a Territory good time.

Alex Bowden, 23, of Wagaman, Darwin, put a spinning “flying bee” winged firework in his butt crack during a party at a rented house on Rossiter St, Rapid Creek on Saturday night.

His mate Todd Lovell lit the fuse.

“I had a few lads up from Queensland and I had to put on a good show,”

…..

“It didn’t burn my balls or my back,” the fitter and turner said. “Just my fingers and my arse. “It was a pretty loose one, hey.”

….

His mate Reece McEwen said: “He screamed a little bit and there were a fair few f-words”.

But Mr Bowden denied that there were tears.

“You can’t sit here crying,” he said.

Anfd how is his family coping with the shame and embarassment??

Mr Bowen said his mother “thought it was funny”.

Charming lady, enthusiastic, earnest, and happily receiving and distributing other people’s monies, in this case federal.

The Background: Ive been trying to start up a mobile fruitcart/juice business in my town. Its coastal, warm/hot most of the year and distinctly lacking anything like this.

Ive fought with the council for a year and won grudging approval, with a lot of potential roadblocks still to overcome.

Enter the grant eater… I wont mention the programme exactly, but lets just say its supposed to improve community health by cash grants to new or existing initives. My proposal was heard about by the lady in charge of $250,000 of federal grant money and shes pretty well fasttracked our application through council and all the hurdles which were in place are just dropping away. In addition we are to receive $5000 of grant money for our project.

Now Im not one to knock back a “free” quid, but Im going to receive money for a project which Im wanting to set up anyway with the expectation of making a profit. This brings me to my main point, throughout this process Ive seen the shocking mentality of “not-for-profit” at work. There is a large percentage of the people Ive talked too who seem to look down on the fact this is intended to make money.

I havent seen that before, its a new concept to me that people think a not-for-profit, which pays their costs through grants/taxes and unsustainable fees (too low) is inherently more noble or better than a business that turns a profit and pays its own way.

In some cases the grant eaters set up not-for-profits which can directly compete with existing businesses.

Heres an example.

In my town there are 2 bike repair shops, both doing ok. So what is the council grant eater doing??

Trying to set up a not for profit bike repair.

I wish this email was a parody, I wish the bloke in the pictures wasnt real.. but here it is.

Pollinators presents a rare opportunity to hear from Lachy Ritchie, one of Australia’s leading “Young Social Pioneers”.

Yes, its really him…

Register now: (link removed) leads Dismantle, a bike repair and recycling social enterprise based in Fremantle. Dismantle has been recongised by local and state governments, corporate partners and national NGOs as a leading example of integrated, sustainable delivery of social and environmental outcomes.In this 1 hour session Lachy will:Present on the ‘Dismantle’ model for connecting people and bikes for personal, community and planetary benefit, Share insights and lessons learned through successful social enterprise that reduces waste to landfill, builds confidence and relationships amongst young people and increases community participation,Discuss the relevance of the Dismantle model to regional WA and especially ****.  
 

Its disturbing to see government gifting money where private enterprise either already exists, or is already willing to set up. Just as disturbing is the messianic impulse that drives these professionals. Ive had quite a bit of fun dropping the “we want to put solar panels on the roof of the cart” line to the different council/grant people we have spoken to.

Without exception, 5 times now the first words out of their mouths have been “that’s sustainability”…

Pavlovs dogs couldnt do better..

But its a mindset of the professional, generally uni educated, tax eater class on display.

Oh and PS: Our council rates are going up around 25% this year… no connection..

UPDATE:: Recieved this just a short time ago, again I wish it was a parody…

I wish to apologise if I have caused anyone grief through the image of the pipe in the previous e-mail I sent reminding people of the Bikes + People = Happy people + Healthy planet event.The image was taken in the context of Tweed Run — remarkably effective campaigns to get non-cyclists on their bikes: http://dismantle.org.au/events/freo-tweed-run/

A global movement: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweed_RunBy no means does the Healthy Communities Initiative -  ******! Getting Active and Eating Well Made Easy project support smoking and I sincerely apologise if this e-mail has expressed this message.

I’ve spent years trying to figure out why people fail to understand how governments have been systematically tearing down the foundations of individual liberties. How can they not see it? How can they not understand what is happening?

Now I understand. Completely. Read this, and you will too.

I’m going to lie down now. In the fetal position. And try to find a happy place.

Frederick County, Maryland, USA. It’s a relatively normal place…normal being relative anywhere, I suppose. It’s home to about 235,000 souls, and is roughly 670 square miles in area. You can drive from one end of the county to another in under 30 minutes, whether it’s north-south or east-west.

I’ve call FredCo home for 13 years now. As with most who moved here in the 90′s, it was the only place in the Baltimore/Washington corridor where we could afford a larger house with a yard.

But FredCo has within its borders something that sets it apart from other mostly rural counties in Maryland. Just outside of Thurmont, a mere 15 minute drive from the city of Frederick, is a little place called Camp David. And, suddenly, this weekend Frederick County is on the map.

 This morning a few G-8 protesters were gathering in Thurmont, painting signs and gathering on street corners to share their thoughts about world affairs.

Richard Ochs and Donna Plamondon, two members of Occupy Baltimore, expected to be joined by about a dozen others from their group. They prepared signs near the Weis grocery at the southern end of the city.

Outdoors, reporters and law enforcement outnumbered residents and protesters before 11 a.m. Protesters said they had no plans to be destructive, but wanted to let government officials know that they are dissatisfied with the status quo. Nine Occupy New Haven members arrived by car after camping nearby.

Barbara Barbe was out front of Brown’s Jewelry & Gift store watching the morning’s activity.

“Every other car’s a police car,” Barbe said.

She and police shared the opinion that all seemed to be calm and friendly under the sunny skies.

Notwithstanding the nonchalance of the local paper, the truth on the ground is that there is great deal of apprehension around FredCo. The local hospital is on high alert, with mandatory on-site staff presence and a makeshift triage – “just in case” – in the cafeteria. The local news-talk radio station is sending out special emails reminding listeners to tune to 930 AM for the latest information.

Anyone who has followed the news, even casually, over the past decade knows that a G-8 or G-20 summit usually means riots in the host city. I’m not sure where the protesters could riot in FredCo. Thurmont is a spec on the map, and Frederick city is not exactly Metropolis. Maybe they can meet at FSK Mall, or Baker Park. I dunno.

If anything of interest happens, I’ll make a follow-up post. Otherwise, you’ll know that it was just another ordinary, quiet weekend in the sticks.

Full fathom 5 my slipper lies:

Of his reputation cesspools are made:

Those little turds that were his eyes:

Nothing of him that doth fade:

But doth suffer a Party-change:

Into something stink and manged:

Press gallery hourly ring his knell:

Dong-Dong

Fark, now I hear them,– Dong-Dong, Taxi!!

Original below the fold.

Full Fathom Five

The sheer “did she just say that” stupidity was breathtaking… That she hasnt been pilloried in the press for it speaks volumes about the poor state of political reporting in Australia today.

So Im going to fisk it a little, its a loooong speech, so it will take quite a while, her speech will be plain text, my observations will be bold.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Crossin):

Order! The Senate is considering the minerals resource rent tax legislation as a package.

Senator MILNE

(Tasmania—Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens) (19:30):

I rise tonight to discuss what sort of future we aspire to have in this country, because, whilst the specific is the Minerals Resource Rent Tax Bill 2011 and associated legislation, the context in which we are debating this tax is what sort of vision do we have for Australia in the next 20, 30 or 50 years. How you raise the money and where you spend it will determine that kind of country, because the future is actually an extension of the present and it is shaped by the decisions and actions we make.

Here Christine is using her amazing intellect to tell us time is linear, and actions have consequences… probably the highest point of her speech

More, oh so much more.. under the fold

When I go around Australia and talk to people, they say they want Australia to be a clever country. They want Australia to be a country in which people are well educated and have equality of opportunity, where everybody can aspire to good health care—including good dental health—where there is a sense of social cohesion, because we are an equitable and egalitarian nation and we are happy people. That is the kind of nation that people talk about aspiring to.

“A clever country”, so are you saying we are dumb now? What is worth more in her world, a Uni educated mining engineer or a Surfing Studies – Plymouth / Melbourne or a Doctorate of Philosophy in Ufology – Melbourne University ?

If you want better dental health how about tackling the artificial scarcity of dentists in Australia? Allowing the doctors/dentists to effectively block people entering the profession hasnt helped much.

We are talking about that vision for Australia in the context of the major crises facing the nation now: the global climate crisis, the global energy crisis—including peak oil—a food security crisis and a water crisis. All of those things are coming together and every nation, including Australia, has to face up to them.

Heres the short version of the Senators speech in this area…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3ZOKDmorj0

The challenge here is how to deliver this clever, equitable, well educated, healthy, socially cohesive country in the face of those challenges. The clear answer has to be that we cannot continue on the path we are on. One option for Australia is to continue the current economic strategy of digging up, cutting down and shipping away, of failing to invest in education and innovation.

Oh dear me, and how are you planning to pay for the investment you claim to want? Oh wait heres the greens plan.

A GREENS ECONOMICS FORUM, YESTERDAY...

 It is, as Ian Lowe once said, the ‘steady as she sinks approach’. In the steady as she sinks approach, you have a situation where people start to grasp for the returns that they can get while they can get them without thinking about what that means for the nation in the longer term. In that scenario we will continue to sell our resources, sell our industry and even sell the land itself, and with the land its water resources.

So the greens are modern Mauththisans, on the one hand they believe that education and innovation will solve global problems, but on the other hand they believe we lack the capacity to adapt.

We cannot have that. We do not want to become a bleak backwater of big holes in the ground, married to a strategy of driving increased greenhouse gas emissions through massive increases in coal mining with declining commodities prices over time,a loss of cohesion in community and a willingness to see a declining number of tourists come here as our natural resources decline in the face of the crises that I am discussing. We need to make sure we maximise the benefits of the mineral exports boom that we are experiencing and invest those profits in making Australia the clever, equitable country that we want it to be as we move into this century.

Forgive me for butting in again, but how are the tourists to get here in a greens approved way? Walk? Less than 1% of Australia is considered “Built environment” a classification that includes mining… If I wanted to rephrase your words “…We do not want to become a bleak backwater of less than 1% big holes in the ground”…

In order to do that we need to maximise the amount we raise from our resources and not just give it back willy-nilly in tax cuts, as the Howard government did in the midst of the last boom. In 2006 I stood here in this Senate saying that it was disgraceful to be giving back in tax cuts all over the place the benefits of the boom in what was described as ‘manna from heaven’, ‘rivers of gold’ flowing out into the community via tax cuts, but at the same time failing to invest in education, training, innovation and research. During those years we lost some our best young people overseas and risked losing our intellectual property in the longer term. It was a bad way to go and we do not want it to happen again.

Heres the point you socialist bitch, the money you spend is taken from the workers/producers in this country, its not ”yours” to piss up any way you see fit. You arent doing us a favour by allowing us peasants to keep some of our produce, like some mediaeval robber baron gone soft.

As for your claim of mining being detrimental to Australias patents/tech industries, it may surprise you to know we no longer work by candle-light, and Australia has produced a huge array of innovative  solutions to mining and engineering problems in the field.

At the moment we are facing unprecedented growth in China with its re-engagement with the global economy and that has led to huge commodity prices, but, as I indicated in the Senate today, that is not likely to continue. We need to recognise that China is an incredibly clever country in that they are investing in the low-carbon economy and those new technologies. They are going to cap coal in 2015 and that sends a very strong signal about where we will be wasting money if, for example, we go massively into spending public money in supporting infrastructure development in an industry which has such a limited life in the face of global warming and peak oil.

Funny, China is set to cap coal consumption at 4.1 BILLION tonnes, Australia produced, not exported  a grand total of  471 Mt in its peak year to date (09-10). The projected increase in consumption of coal before the cap takes place is larger than the TOTAL production of Australian coal..

Funny though, another enviro mob project it much higher...

We have a windfall gain now and that has led to huge increases in mining profits, but there has not been an exceptional increase in production and productivity has actually fallen. Most of the mining profits that are generated are going to shareholders overseas as the mining companies are predominantly around 80 per cent foreign owned. The benefits of the mining boom have been the subject of rather exaggerated claims about the economic benefits, but if you consider the nation as a whole a lot of people are hurting around Australia because of the impacts on our economy of the mining boom.

Ok got to break in here, can Ms Milne explain to poor simple me, why mining as a sector of the economy is worse than… say the overseas education/University sector? Why is the fees paid by an Indian student to study in Australia worse than a similar amount of money earned from mining?

 Mining itself only employs about two per cent of the workforce, far less than agriculture and a quarter of manufacturing. The mining boom has led to an appreciation of the Australian dollar, higher interest rates, and shortages of labour in certain regions and particularly in certain skills.

Its also kept us insulated from a UK/US style economic meltdown. There is a serious disconnect in Ms Milnes head, when she surveys the wreckage of most developed countries economies, then looks at ours, and denounces it.

 We know that a number of skilled workers have left the manufacturing sector to try to maximise their incomes in mining towns.

Yes, much better for this “friend of the worker” if they make less money at the widget factory…

These impacts are leading to lower profits and lower returns to shareholders and fewer jobs in other industries, such as manufacturing and tourism. The mining boom is also having adverse implications for greenhouse gas emissions, both during the mining in Australia and when the exported coal is burnt overseas.

Whereas her tourists arrive on hemp rafts propelled by dolphin farts? And if she believes in peak oil she should know the tourism industry must be doomed.

 It is extraordinary that the expansion that is to be generated in the Galilee Basin in Queensland, for example, is going to wipe out the emissions reductions from our clean energy package by a factor of at least two or three.

I confess to having hoped this exposure to facts might, just might, trigger a realisation that the whole “clean energy package” is about as effective as a chocolate condom at satans own orgy.. Re-read that bit,  ”..is going to wipe out the emissions reductions from our clean energy package by a factor of at least two or three..” At a huge cost to the economy we are going to produce a backwards step in her own stated goals.. Madness

 This is an absolutely shocking trend in terms of where we are with the global environment, with the

State of the climate report 2012 from the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology coming out yesterday pointing out that, with greenhouse gas emissions rising, it has to stop. Yet we are driving those global emissions with those coal exports.

Furthermore, we are seeing appalling dredging operations to expand the ports in the Great Barrier Reef. That increased shipping is damaging the Great Barrier Reef and the marine environment, and the implications are not just for tourism and fisheries but for the intrinsic value of the reef itself. The Australian Great Barrier Reef is of world heritage significance, it is of outstanding universal significance to humankind, yet we are prepared to dump the spoil from dredging in Gladstone Harbour and into that reef and destroy those areas forever.

Dont be so fucking infantile, the spoil comes from the ocean bed anyway, and it isnt being dumped willy nilly, its dumped in low value areas, within the marine park, but not in the World Heritage areas, It is difficult to find any major part of the Queensland coast not in the Park area.

 That is what I mean about saying we are not a clever country if we are prepared to damage biodiversity, damage the reef and damage our global status in terms of world heritage simply to rush the facilitation of a huge expansion of coal mining. I see today that the companies are calling for an acceleration of the infrastructure build in Queensland to get that coal out of the country faster, get those ships turned around faster and drive greenhouse gases faster. That is the current scenario.

Its called economic growth, investment, and jobs creation, and Ill note a little further on you have no problems spending the monies generated by this industry you hate.

We are also seeing coal and coal seam gas putting at risk quality food-producing land and water supplies. We are witnessing what is going on with farms, farm income and the appalling depression in a lot of farming communities as they see land which they have nurtured and cared for over generations, and water supplies, being compromised by this absolutely mad rush for expanded coal and coal seam gas. It is also damaging community cohesion. As I mentioned before, there have been lots of local government people in the media talking about the lack of cohesion in some of the communities in which the mining boom is occurring as we see the increasing use of fly in, fly out workers and a lack of support for community services in the towns themselves.

Fly in/fly out is because government started treating the setting up of mining towns as a fringe benefit.. It almost overnight saw no new or expansion of existing mining towns, it was taxed out of existence.  Just a reminder that taxes have NEGATIVE effects, even if you are to stupid or morally bankrupt to acknowledge this.

Australians have led the world in thinking about the impacts of resources booms and have looked at the optimal taxation treatment of them. We should be setting an example to the world in the implementation of an efficient tax to ensure that people get a fair share of the returns from their natural resources.

Bloody hell, another Tasmanian rent seeker trying to justify the raking off of WA/Queensland monies to her backwards state. In the constitution I think she will find minerals are the property of the STATE government they lie in, not the federal tax eating machine.

 That is why the Greens have said that we should have a sovereign wealth fund. As I said, if your aim is to use the boom to actually make the transition to the low-carbon economy, to make this investment in education, to make the investment in national disability insurance and to actually change society to get it to where you want to be, then you need to maximise your returns in the national interest and invest them wisely. That is why in the original Henry review there was a proposal for the resources superprofits tax and that is why the Greens supported it. We wanted to see Australia have the capacity to make the transition that we need to have. But, under duress from a ferocious and misleading advertising campaign by the large mining companies, the government replaced the superprofits tax with this minerals resource rent tax, which is a severely compromised version of what we should be achieving and will raise around $100 billion less over the next decade than the superprofits tax would have done.

Because pulling 100 billion out of the industry sector which has largely shielded us from the ongoing GFC couldnt have any negative effects eh? How about Tasmania use some of its mineral resources to pay for some state based systems? And why the appeal to “a low carbon economy” you can’t want to dampen and industry, and simultaneously reap more taxation from it.

The Greens are totally opposed to forgoing, largely into the pockets of the overseas shareholder base, that $100 billion which could be invested in education, health, disability, dental care and so on. Over $80 billion of the lost revenue will go to those overseas investors, (Ie: the people who funded the projects)  and much of the other $20 billion will go to the wealthier members of the Australian community (again, people who funded/made these projects). This is money that could fund initiatives in all the areas I mentioned, including public transport and the very fast train. Can you imagine what a different society Australia would be, what level of excitement there would be in the community, if we actually saw a real return from the resources boom being invested in a very fast train, in dental care, in a modern public transport system—if we actually saw our cities become competitive and productive again instead of being congested and losing a lot of their liveability because we have failed to invest in decent public transport?

A conservative estimate for high speed rail linking most of the East coast is 100 billion dollars, pray tell where the rest of your wish lists money comes from?  Dont get me wrong I like trains, and would rather take the Prospector than fly, but its not economically viable without ongoing economic subsidy.

Whilst the mining industry are running a scare campaign about the impact on them of paying more tax, their actual and planned investment and spending on exploration continues to reach new record highs.

Are you lying or ignorant? Australias spending on exploration went backwards as a % globally, with Africa firming up as a serious player.

PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Australian mineral exploration expenditure fell by 9,7% from a record A$2,4-billion in 2007/8 to A$2,2-billion in 2008/9 according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics

 The Greens want to see some improvements in this bill. We want to restore the mining tax to close to the level recommended by the Henry review. We want to make sure that the mining companies pay their fair share of tax for the resources that are owned by all of us. This is in the national interest. These resources belong to the people of Australia. They do not belong to a few wealthy people, a few companies and a whole lot of other overseas shareholders. They are our resources; they are non-renewable, and therefore they need to be used in the national interest. At an absolute minimum, the goldminers, who are garnering windfall profits from an unanticipated near-record price for gold, should be brought under this tax along with coal and iron ore miners. This change alone would add almost $2 billion over a decade and, better still, it would be able to restore the coverage to most minerals, including copper, nickel, rare earths and uranium.

Theres the bottom line for the greens, money. Every principle they hold dear (opposing uranium mining) is up for grabs as long as they secure the money they want. They consider the “owners” of the minerals, yet I never saw a green operating a dump truck, a jumbo or an airleg in my time mining. Nor did I hear of the greens funded exploration company, or junior mining startup company. Ive seen a startup up close. The blokes involved (2 geos) cobbled together a joint venture, and bet everything they owned on a single mine, if it failed they lost their houses, the lot. As it stood they made a fortune, THESE ARE GOOD PEOPLE, they created jobs for (by the time I left) just over 1000 people, and are looking to find and develop more ground.. not the greens caricature of robber barons raping the earth.

The rate of the tax should be restored to the 40 per cent proposed in the Henry tax review, rather than the 22½ per cent in this minerals resource rent tax. That would double the revenue raised. The OECD commented that the proposed tax is set at a relatively low level and therefore the taxation of profits of mining companies is likely to remain much lower than before the mining boom. That is worth considering in the context of what we are doing here.

That last  couple of lines makes no sense at all.. none. She is claiming a new tax will raise less money than no tax? Im going to be kind and put that down to brain damage rather than stupidity on her behalf.

The federal government also cannot continue to provide a blank cheque whereby state governments raise royalties and then the federal government refunds the companies. That is the most ridiculous part of what has occurred with this tax. Giving the states the capacity to keep raising their royalties—and expecting the Commonwealth to refund that—while not being able to fund in the national interest the Gonski review findings of putting $5 billion into education and our National Disability Insurance Scheme and Denticare because we are giving it back to the states are all flawed parts of this. The other changes incorporated in the tax, such as the higher uplift rate and other generous provisions, also need to be reviewed.

Again, fuck you Tasmanian, the minerals are property of the state government, if you want some mineral wealth, open some mines in your old peoples home you call a state.

In relation to the company tax rate the Greens have made it very clear that we do not support tax cuts for big business. We have made that extremely clear. That would be one way the Greens would fund these initiatives in the public interest to get the clever country to fund innovation in the way that is necessary and to fund education and training. We are the only party in here saying, ‘We are prepared to impose that higher level of taxation during the boom so that we can fund education, disabilities and Denticare’—unlike the coalition’s aspirations. They would rather not give that money to the Australian people. They would rather give it back to the mining companies concerned.

Ok, Ill keep it simple for Christine, as complex thought is difficult for her.

Big companies pay tax. The government then spends that tax.

The more profitable a company is, the more tax the government gets. There is however another effect. If they choose to expand their company (creating more taxpayers, reducing welfare bills etc) the government forgoes some of that tax.

Heres the funny bit… Thats a GOOD thing..

The Greens recognise that, if you are going to fund the $5 billion additional funding for Gonski—and everywhere I go people want money spent on schools—$3 billion going into public education would make a massive investment in the future. It would also make a massive investment in equity in Australia—equitable access to education—and that is essential. The high-speed rail link from Melbourne to Sydney to Brisbane would connect 18 million people. As I indicated, the National Disability Insurance Scheme needs to be funded—as does the sovereign wealth fund that we have suggested—so that we can start making long-term plans to deal with our future.

Just imagine how many school halls we could build at massively inflated prices to union based companies with 3 billion? High speed rail? By all means buy up transport corridors, but its unlikely to be economically viable for a few decades yet. Disability scheme? Nice idea, but the boom will end one day, dont base your funding on a non-permenant revenue stream.

In terms of superannuation and how the government intends to spend this money, the Greens have indicated on several occasions that the miners are now saying that they want some of this money back for infrastructure projects. They complain about paying the tax but they have their hand out for everything from accelerated depreciation to massive investments in their infrastructure—and that is unacceptable. Infrastructure should be in the public interest, not to subsidise the profits of mining companies when they are not even prepared to pay the tax as is recommended.

They pay a lot of tax already. And here is where the greens “cut off my nose to spite my face” ideology comes into play. They simultaneously lust after the money, but cant bring themselves to fund expansion which would see more taxation revenues flowing in.

Its revealing just how contradictory their thinking is. Either allow the industry to go gangbusters, and increase tax collected, or restrict its growth, AND restrict you tax collection in future years.

Yes, the mining tax will allow an expansion of the superannuation scheme by covering the additional costs to revenue that result from the tax concessions offered to super contributions and earnings. The Greens are supportive of the superannuation increase but we want to take this opportunity to address the inequities in those tax concessions. Those concessions should not be giving the same benefits to high-income earners as they do to low-income earners. The Greens propose replacing the flat 15 per cent tax on superannuation contributions with a tax at the employee’s marginal rate, less a fixed amount ofaround 15 percentage points. The best technical approach for doing this should be recommended by the superannuation roundtable.

Again, they will restrict future tax receipts (and increase pension costs) out of the politics of envy, and short term greed for tax to spend. They call for a sovereign wealth fund, while ignoring the fact this is effectively what superannuation does already. Economic idiots.

We are also interested in the recommendations that came out of the tax summit last year and the working group that is now looking at other ways to support small business. If the parliament would take up the Greens’ view that we give the tax cuts to small business but not to big business then we would have $4.3 billion to further facilitate these outcomes including supporting the backbone of the economy, which of course is small business.

You hate small business, stop posturing. At what stage does a saintly small business morph into a hated big business?

I return to where I began. ( Dog returns to vomit, fools hand wobbles back towards the fire..)We will support this tax, recognising that it could and should have been a much better outcome for Australia. The disappointment I have with it is that there is no vision surrounding it. There is no articulated vision for what sort of country we want Australia to be in 2050. How are we setting in place, now, the kind of investment that will lead to that future? If we are to increase productivity in Australia, we will not do it through use of more oil, more resources, more land and more water. We will do it by investing in education, innovation, science, research, maintaining our own intellectual property and selling services around the world. That is the way we will do it. We will do it by getting to the low-carbon economy with all the enormous innovation and opportunity we see, and we will do it by investing in public transport, the very fast train and Denticare. Through all of those investments we will have a happier, more equitable, better educated, healthier country which has a vision of itself as a clever country, a wise country, connected in our region and connected globally by the strength of our intelligence, and all that comes from that, with the kind of intellectual input that I am suggesting. We will not get there through digging more holes, cutting down more trees or giving out the money to everybody to buy votes in the short term and ending up without the clever—(Time expired)(Thank god)

So there it is, the future consists of not allowing any extractive industries, but simultaneously spending increasing amounts of tax revenue from it.

A year 8 English poem!!!   Bought home by ****** for an assignment. Opinions please!!

TIME IS RUNNING OUT
The miner rapes
The heart of earth
With his violent spade.
Stealing, bottling her black blood
For the sake of greedy trade.
On his metal throne of destruction,
He labours away with a will,
Piling the mountainous minerals high
With giant tool and iron drill.

The face of evil?

In his greedy lust for power,
He destroys old nature’s will.
For the sake of the filthy dollar,
He dirties the nest he builds.
Well he knows that violence
Of his destructive kind
Will be violently written
Upon the sands of time.

A pristine peoples nest, before the miners move in?

But time is running out
And time is close at hand,
For the Dreamtime folk are massing
To defend their timeless land.
Come gentle black man
Show your strength;
Time to take a stand.
Make the violent miner feel
Your violent
Love of land.
Oodgeroo Noonuccal.

My opinion?

What a heap of steaming greenie shit wrapped up in a “poor blackfellah me” story to try and give it respectability. The lady that wrote it was a Communist, and the name it was written under was her original one  Kath Walker, but plain old Kath Walker wouldnt sound mystical enough for the education department would it?

This type of bullshit propaganda completely ignores any of the massive plus sides of a modern manufactured life. Pencils, air con, computers, coal for electricity, steel, all used to improve the lives of millions of Australians.

Ignored for some mystical greenie gibberish which makes a fetish of a stone age way of life.

As most people are aware an entirely fabricated and stage managed “outrage” has erupted over the disposal of defaced korans in Afghanistan.

Even the Iranians are using it as a propaganda tool.

It has led to war graves of Sodiers who fought against nazi tyrrany being defaced in the now “free” country of Lybia being attacked and desecrated.

This makes me somewhat cross.

Years ago in Port hedland we had a large number of Korans damaged in a deliberately lit fire, the Imam was consulted about the proper methods of disposal for the damaged books.

The 2 suggested methods were a burial (which ened up being what was done) or burning them.

I would suggest the Korans which have caused this “outrage” were being disposed of in an entirely Islamicly agreeable manner.

But enough from me, let see what various “Ask the Imam” sites say about this.

Ummah forum: How do you destroy (if that’s the right word ) Quranic verses. So if you’ve got a Quran that is worn out with damaged pages etc, how should you dispose of it?

Daruliffta:How does one get rid of unwanted religious literature, such as religious books, leaflets with the name of Allah, etc? Also, please state the ruling on what should be done to the copies of Qur’an that are no longer in a useable state:

Islam Q&A: How much efforts should muslim put in to preserve the old copies of Quran? This certainly requires resources and expertise in preservation. There are many old copies of Quran in various libraries and homes but they are all dusted and in bad condition. How one should act in this situation where there is a desire to save such Mushaaf?.

Guess what is acceptable in all 3 as the disposal method?

My prefferred option.

Onlt one out of the 3 suggests burning as less than optimal, all 3 have it as a legitimate disposal method.

Indeed, if I was a military commander in Afghanistan I might suggest handing over the detainees who defaced the Korans in the first place for the customary punishments

“..Desecrating a copy of the Quran is punishable by imprisonment in some countries (life imprisonment in Pakistan, according to Article 295-B of the Penal Code) and has been punishable by death in Afghanistan, Somalia and Pakistan…”

This is purely confected outrage, call the shits out on it, ask if they are going against thier own religous rulings on this one.

As a favor to an old Air Force friend, I’d like to ask any of y’all who have Facebook or Twitter accounts or your own blogs to give this a bit of oxygen.

Thank you and God bless!

♦  ♦  ♦  ♦  ♦

Update: Gregory No. 6, James Board and El Campeador join the campaign. If you’ve re-blogged, Facebooked or Twittered it, let me know in comments below and we’ll give you a plug as well.

In the Australian today:

NO sooner did President Barack Obama welcome home American troops from Iraq and laud that country’s stability and democracy than an unprecedented wave of violence across Baghdad and elsewhere revealed the severity of Iraq’s political crisis.

Unfortunate, yet hardly surprising, even to the most casual of observers.

And whilst I can understand (yet not agree with) the Left’s position not to send troops into Iraq in the first place – an argument, largely moot, for another day – what I don’t understand is their fervish desire to pull the troops out.

It always smacked of idealism, ideology, rather than hard-nosed practicality.

After all, what was so bad with having a US troop presence there to help maintain Iraq’s fragile democratic stability?

One could argue that I am biased because a) I am centre-right politically and b) because I live in South Korea, a nation that has had a US troop presence – some 37,000  28,000 or so currently – since the armistice between North and South Korea and have seen what a permanent US troop presence looks like.

I am happy to accept those labels and can gladly tell you that such a presence ain’t that bad.

By and large,  US bases in Korea – and Japan for that matter – haven’t been a problem.

Sure, issues pop up from time to time, but if one looks at the big picture, then a strong US presence here can only be seen as a good thing, a safe option, a pretty darn good insurance policy against North Korea trying anything major on.

Almost 60 years we’ve had US troops over here without any major problems. In fact, many major problems (a full-scale Nork attack comes to mind) have arguably been averted thanks to this presence.

So, why the rush to leave Iraq essentially free of any US military  before even a decade is up and before, as is clear now, the job is done?

OK, so perhaps it’s a bit like comparing apples and oranges. US troops in Korea, aside from those stationed at the DMZ, aren’t on active duty as they were in Iraq.

However, it’s not a completely dissimilar situation. Perhaps a good analogy would be to compare mandarins and oranges.

US troops not only provided safety and stability in the fledgling democracy that is Iraq – a country still steeped with sectarian and tribal rivalries – but surely they also provided a deterrence to anybody or any groups who want to destabilise the nation.

What takes years to build can take mere seconds to destroy, and I fear a lot of hard work is being undone on the whim of a flawed, feel-good, ideology.

So why?

The only practical reason that I can see for Obama pulling his troops out of Iraq is that with an Iranian confrontation looming which includes action needed in Syria, Iraq frankly isn’t important enough any more or at best, an impractical option for a potentially over-stretched military.

Of course, Obama – a man of the progressive Left – can’t actually come out and say that but it is reasonably well-known to those who don’t just get their news from the MSM that Obama is actually more of a war-time president than Bush was, having committed more troops to both Iraq and Afghanistan, and for a longer period of time.

So whilst the MSM might play along with the “bringing the troops home” narrative, the evidence indicates this simply isn’t the case.

Some 20,000 marines, seamen and air crews from half a dozen countries, a US nuclear aircraft carrier strike group and three US Marine gunship carriers are practicing an attack on a fictitious mechanized enemy division which has invaded its neighbor. It is the largest amphibian exercise seen in the West for a decade, staged to simulate a potential Iranian invasion of an allied Persian Gulf country and a marine landing on the Iranian coast. Based largely on US personnel and hardware, French, British, Italian, Dutch, Australian* and New Zealand military elements are integrated in the drill.
Bold Alligator went into its operational phase Monday, Feb. 6, the same day as a large-scale exercise began in southern Iran opposite the Strait of Hormuz. This simultaneity attests to the preparations for a US-Iranian showdown involving Israel behind the words on Feb. 5 of US President Barack Obama (“I don’t think Israel has decided whether to attack Iran”) and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Feb. 3 (“The war itself will be ten times as detrimental to the US.”).

(*BTW, I don’t recall Aussie PM Gillard highlighting that one.)

And this:

As the US and Israel carried on bickering over the right time to strike Iran’s nuclear sites, their war preparations continued apace. debkafile’s military sources report that flight after flight of US warplanes and transports were to be seen this week cutting eastward through the skies of Sinai on their way to Gulf destinations, presumably Saudi Arabia, at a frequency not seen in the Middle East for many years.

Add into this mix reports that China will reportedly help Saudi Arabia build a nuclear bomb, and that both China and India have started paying Iran for its oil in gold thus helping thwart current US/UN sanctions (more of which were recently thwarted by Russia and China), then we see a stage set for a showdown and we see the reality that rhetoric aside, Obama won’t be bringing many troops home at all.

To someone who doesn’t know any better, it’s as if Russia, India, and China – all wannabe first chickens to the trough – are ganging up on America.**

PS Who wouldn’t love to be a fly on the wall listening in to what the US is really saying about China? Their ever-expanding use of soft power is in many ways, stuffing it all up for America. China must surely be becoming an ever-increasing pain in the neck.

This leaves Australia in an interesting position. Our main export partner is China. Our main ally is the US. We send China our goodies to help them get rich and rival America. We practice shooting our guns with America to help keep America on top.

And yet China and America are also so deep in each other’s pockets. America buys China’s goods. China buys America’s debt.

Fun times.

** I highly recommend reading The Lucifer Principle by Howard Bloom. Part of the book talks about the pecking order of nations.

I live in a city (and I use the term extremely loosely) named Frederick. Frederick, Maryland, to be exact. Frederick is located 45 miles west of Baltimore, 45 miles northwest of Washington, DC. There are somewhere between 50,000 and 75,000 people who live in greater Frederick/Walkersville/Braddock Heights/New Market. Metropolis it ain’t. In fact, up until the cost of housing in greater Washington pushed suburbia on Frederick, it was considered “the sticks”. Nowheresville. Residents of Frederick are referred to as “Frednecks“. You get the idea.

The Occupy movement, which started with Wall Street, evolved to include many cities in the US, including Los Angeles, Sacramento, Seattle, Cincinnati, Austin, Washington, and others. The main thing these cities have in common is that they are either state capitals or major population centers. And the main thing that Occupy protesters have in common is that they are leftist spoiled kids from the suburbs who think the world owes them a living.

So how do “Frederick, MD” and “Occupy” end up in the same sentence? Behold, Occupy Frederick!

Frederick has officially been occupied.

Members of Occupy Frederick set up tents and hung signs next to Carroll Creek on Market Street on Sunday afternoon in hopes of getting the word out about their Occupy Our Homes foreclosure event in early February.

Fifteen to 20 people braved below-freezing temperatures and trudged through snow in their winter coats, gloves and hats on Sunday, trying to stay warm while building awareness.

Building awareness. How very progressive! [cue puking noises]

I’m rather at a loss trying to figure out how left wing pukes “raising awareness” are going to fare among the Frednecks. Perhaps we Frednecks can raise THEIR awareness. Lessons they could learn include:

“Get a job!”
“Occupy THIS!”
“I got yer 99% RIGHT HERE!”
“Why don’t you ‘occupy’ a bathtub, you filthy hippy maggots!”

And, the one they most need to learn: “We don’t owe you shit!”

Mr Wilkie proposed restrictions on poker machines. He was extremely sincere in his opposition to them.

This is Julia Gillard, she was extremely sincere in wishing to form government in Australia after the last election.

This is Julia Gillard sincerely forming government with the Support of Mr Wilkie, who believed he had secured a sincere promise of pokie reform in exchange for Ms Gillard securing power.

Then something happened to change everything…

This!

The ALP owns a number of the clubs that in turn, own a number of pokie machines, State ALP received hundreds of thousands in donations every election from these clubs.

Now Julia is left honouring an agreement she feels little or nothing about, if she does this state ALP branches will lose a huge source of funding. State ALP may be in  sincere “discussions” about this..

So its perfectly simple, to keep a promise she made which will cause her party financial pain, and make another “Kevin” challenge inevitable, or burn Wilkie.

Facinating Mr Wilkie, come closer and tell me more...

Wilkie is toast.

From the Australian, a bit of vital background…

“But Mr Hatch told The Australian Online he didn’t see how the Canberra Labor Clubs group, which donated about $600,000 to the ACT branch of the Labor Party in 2009-10, could isolate the compensation from other revenue sources.”

I was there on Thursday about 1500, and the house was locked up, bailiff notices on the doors, all secure.

Friday morning I went to the house with the lady from the Department of Housing, I beat her by about 5 minutes and found the place had been broken into overnight. Empty houses in an underclass neighborhood are an open invitation to burgle.

I confirmed a bit of the gear was mine (barely worth retrieving) and left. I went back a bit later with my other half and the camera, I think its necessary to document why some of the “poor” should be left in the street as an example to others.

The rather inviting front...This place was occupied for only around 8 months, on average it takes Homeswest a good 3 months to "take back" an abandoned property. Side of the house.

Breakfast of champions.

Note security screen door torn off the hinges.

Back of the house

Back again

The break in, smash the window near the door

Kitchen

For a change ants, not cockroaches on the floor.

Holes punched in walls.

At least whats in the fridge is still "fresh"....

I was lying about the roaches, here they are...

Corridor in the house...

Kitchen/dining..

Goldilocks was here?

The household "shrine"?

Pity the next door mob..

Forest rescue is yet another of those tedious self anointed savers of the world. In there world every form of industry and progress is bad and must be stopped, usually by pooling their dole payments and weed and strapping themselves to bits of machinery.

Unfortunately said machinery is not generally allowed to be switched on as long as they are strapped to it.

Recently 3 tools boarded a Japanese whaling vessel in an attempt to cause maximum drama.. The Japs havent played ball and offloaded them to an Australian customs vessel and they returned to Australian soil today.

Yes thats "captain" Watson visiting the ferals at their camp site. Wonder if they entered into a conspiracy to break the law while they were there?

 I thought Id have a look at their website to see if they received any corporate funding, apparently they dont… A rather non-transparent organisation when it comes to funds.

But I hit the mother lode when I had a look at the poems/drawings section on the website. A psychologist would have a field day analysing this stream of bong-smoke drivel.

All glory to the Hypnotoad.....

Abscence of organised religion isnt the same as non-religious.

Heres a few highlights.

Nice customer of mine, sweet old lady looking after her kids in a crap street. Department of housing just dropped 3 families from “out of town” there because of feuding in Mullewa.

Surprise, surprise they are still fighting in town, culminating in a street fight with about 150 or so people involved, sticks, rocks, shanghais and lots of fisticuffs over a day and a half. Right on the corner of my clients house. She moved everything of value she could into her bedroom as she expected her house to be smashed as well.

I had a chat to her for a while and she informed me Homeswest (public housing) had refused to put on security screens as she wasnt in a “high crime” area.

I gave our local MP a ring and it appears homeswest might be changing their mind on this one…

Yesterday, go to a clients place to pick up a washing machine for repair, spot police forensics at the end of the street taking photos. Pull up in the driveway and noticed I was parking on a heap of blood splatter.

A 15 year old girl had stabbed 3 people there the night before, off her tits on speed, my customers have decamped, I think its his sister who did the stabbing.

Today, bumped into a customer, he described some of the trials hes been in for the last few weeks. Brought a foil of dope from a dealer and had left the dealers house when he was bashed unconscious and had his dope and money stolen. Hes a Willuna bloke so hes got a few of his boys out looking for the assailants, says he will “cripple them” when they are found. Hes about 55.

His daughter had all her possessions stolen when she was about 2 weeks away from giving birth. In addition some blokes shot her in the head with ball bearing from a shanghai, split her head open but didnt drop her. Spoke quite proudly of how the doctors said “if your skull wasnt so thick it might have killed you”.

I might buy this soon...

Speaking to another older lady customer of mine and she blames a lot of it on facebook. Apparently the young ones are flat out baiting each other into fights and whole families are joining in.. plus the written word lasts longer than a spoken insult.

Im pretty sure my town will see a few murders soon, there have been a number of people bashed unconscious, and it just seems to be escalating. My mate the copper reckons its most likely to end with some house fires as people try to drive others out of town…

Nearly every bit of this dysfunction is people on welfare, black and white….

N.B. Works equally well as an accompaniment to Australian Parliamentary Question Time coverage.

- via

What did comment trolls do before the internet? Strip down, paint themselves red, and yell at the parakeet?—
James Lileks (@Lileks) November 09, 2010

Having just spent an hour or so watching the New Hampshire GOP Republican debate, having gleaned various tidbits over the internet since a while back, I can honestly say I don’t know.

Yet.

In comments at that link, Ron Paul’s supporters come across as a tad too fervent, as does Paul himself. He just comes across as a bit whiney. Quick to complain about a problem but a bit wishy washy with any solutions.

Romney arguably won, but he comes off as Obama-lite+religion. He’s big government but I will say he’s tending to own his opponents. He does look presidential and has the establishment’s backing… not necessarily a good thing when up against Obama who REALLY has the Establishment’s backing and REALLY (at least) talks presidential (except here where he sounds about as formidable as Julia Gillard).

Gingrich came off well but he failed to seize various moments – a knack Romney is a master of – and that, overall, made him less memorable. However, he really did come across as knowing the issues (and solutions, direction that should be taken) better than the rest, but he just couldn’t quite clinch it.

Perry sounded good and almost seized opportunities as well as Romney, but I’m not so sure America is ready for another Texan president.

Santorum: the other front-runner at the moment. Hey did OK. Didn’t seize on Romney but did identify more clearly than others that Iran is a big deal now whether you want it or like it or not. But like the others, except Romney, he kowtowed to the panel and failed to define himself properly.

Huntsman came across as more philosophical without adding any qualitative substance. He kept identifying issues without ramming home what he’d do about them. He came across more like a dictionary or Wikipedia than anything else. He explained in detail what we already vaguely knew.

They all had some good things to argue yet none of them wiped the floor.

So time will tell, and we have a few months, to who will actually seize the nomination.

Three points.

1: They are still debating, being scrutinised, still sorting it out, so don’t fall into any pundit’s trap of egging on any one nominee just yet. That is folly and akin to gambling on a horse in the Melbourne Cup when it’s the only bet you make each year.

2: Any one of them will be a better choice than Obama who thanks to these debates is finally, sort of, being scrutinised himself, if not BY the main stream media, at least ON the main stream media.

3: The nominees have proved stronger and more worthy than the MSM and the Right blogosphere have led me to conclude thus far.

UPDATE

Although Romney’s narrative may not have been the best, the point is he managed to iterate it better than the others, despite whatever question was posed.

(cross-posted)

We blame Global Warming.  Also, Tony Abbott.

Next?

-via @AwkwardMsgs1111

So wander over, offer your congratulations and thanks to Anthony Watts for his tireless efforts to bring some sanity – and SCIENCE – back to the discussion of nature, weather, technology and global warming climate change, check out Christopher Monckton’s guest post Hurrah for 8 orders of magnitude! and make sure to have a browse through some of the WUWT classics reposted here.

As Tim Blair noted in his recent post PEAK LOVE, “Climate panic is in decline…”  And though the self-inflicted damage of the content of the Climategate emails and many of the stupid hyperbole-ridden ham-handed advertising and “awareness” campaigns by the Warmies themselves (and their Love Media enablers) are partly to credit for the loss of credibility of the Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming’s Gonna Kill Us All®  movement, much credit must really go to the big guns of the bloggy “Deniosphere” such as Anthony Watts, Andrew Bolt, James Delingpole and our own Blogfather Tim Blair.

“Ha ha Warmist losers. For you the war is over.”