Retired infantry officer. Conservative by nature and politics; Happily married and father and grandfather of eight. Loves V8 powered Range Rovers, Golden Retrievers, good books and technology and think there should be open season on Greenies.
Born in the mid forties and overdue for servicing but most parts still work.
The Washington Post reports the US Senate has voted to limit US aid to Malaysia.
The Senate voted yesterday to restrict military aid to Malaysia in response to Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s assertion that Jews control the world through their influence over major powers.
No link available without divulging your age and country so I’ve quoted the relative paragraphs in full
Voting without dissent, the Senate amended its foreign aid spending bill for next year to make aid to Malaysia contingent on a determination by the secretary of state that Malaysia’s government “supports and promotes religious freedoms, including tolerance for people of the Jewish faith.” The secretary could waive any restrictions for national security reasons.
The amount of money involved, $1.2 million for military training, is relatively small but constitutes the bill’s entire amount for Malaysia, Senate aides said.
Mahathir, scheduled to retire this week after 22 years as prime minister, triggered an international outcry earlier this month when he told an Islamic conference that “Jews rule this world by proxy” and urged Muslim nations to unite to avoid being “defeated by a few million Jews.”
His remarks were “dangerously wrong” and “play directly into the hands . . . of radical Islamic extremists,” Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told the Senate yesterday. “This is not an issue of free speech. . . . His anti-Semitic remarks lend credence and legitimacy to the hateful messages of local terrorists [who] seek to sow mayhem throughout the region.”
Fair enough.
Fires a Dreamtime payback,
say blacks.
Aborigines are claiming that ferocious central Australian bushfires are being driven by a wind called Piriya, which is exacting Dreamtime payback for the siting of the exclusive six-star Longitude 131 safari camp resort near Uluru’s sacred north face.
They seem to have a
dreamtime word for everything that goes wrong. In the
realtime it’s either a bushfire or inter tribal warfare over the lucrative receipts from tourists.
I wonder if the dreamtime has a word for education. Most probably not.
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Under the headline
Brown blind to immoral reality Janet Albrechtsen continues to place Brown under a micriscope.
Here is a tale of two Australians. The first is Special Air Service trooper Andrew Russell. The second is Australian Greens senator Bob Brown. They are a study in contrasts – duty v self-indulgence, the ultimate commitment to country v cavalier grandstanding. Russell died in Afghanistan protecting us from terrorists.
Brown parades around on the fringe of politics trying to free two men who trained with al-Qa’ida. Russell will be remembered as a brave soldier, Brown as the epitome of the power without responsibility that defines fringe politics.
Brown’s wearing of a photo of Hicks and Habib at his infamous day in the House further implicates him in dreamtime. The two enemy terrorists have been incarcerated for about two years now at the Guantanamo Bay resort for those who want to kill us westerners because we are and he feels they should be released.
Well it ain’t going to happen.
Janet says;
Here are the facts so far. Hicks was captured in Afghanistan in late 2001 by the Northern Alliance. He was schooled by al-Qa’ida in four terrorist specialisations – weapons training, casing, surveillance and ambush training. Before that he trained with the Kosovo Liberation Army and before fighting in the Balkans he was a member of a Kashmiri terrorist organisation, Lashkar-e-Toiba, also believed to have links with al-Qa’ida. Hicks has form. He did not hop aboard some Lonely Planet tour for adventurous under-30s.
and on Habib;
According to intelligence sources, as bad as Hicks’s record looks, Habib’s is worse. The Habib family claims that he was in Pakistan looking for schools for his children. But a spokesman for Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has told The Australian that Habib was in fact training with al-Qa’ida in Afghanistan before September 11. And even Habib’s wife concedes that Habib tried to raise funds from Sydney’s Muslim community for Omar Abdel Rahman, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing. Yet Brown wants Habib and Hicks returned to Australia, knowing that no Australian law will keep these men off the streets.
Why is it that the Left support these fools. Are they going to quote another freedom; Freedom of Association? Freedom to serve with associates that are trying to kill Australians like Andrew Russel. Remember these two were fighting with the Taliban, that group that beheaded women for adultry defined as looking at another man.
What is it with the Greens? There are no freedoms that justify these sort of actions. There is no way to rationalize signing up to kill your countrymen.
At the moment a vote for the Greens is a vote for the terrorists. Go that way if you must but remember when you do vote for them It’s not a vote for conservation, it’s a vote against everything that the 95% of Australians holds dear.
I’ve had little time of late to blog on the Brown/Nettle sideshow what with kids, Legacy, other websites, World Cup Rugby, a trip to day surgery and general laziness but there are things that need saying.
The Australian headlines
Greens more Nazi than ratbag: Lib
I’m not sure I’d go as far as to give them the credit of being as organized as the Nazis but he has a point.
It has always been my contention that the Greens were conceived behind the rubble of the Berlin Wall. I can see the parents viewing all the deleriously happy East Germans and wondering…where to go? How else can we attack capitalism now that Communism had been outed. A bottle of cheap vodka and the depression of seeing all those fools, unable to understand the wisdom of communism and the scene was set.
Andrew Bolte puts more flesh on my words when he calls Bob Brown
a dangerous fanatic
I’ve always subscribed to Freedom of Speech and even signed up for the war against communism as part of my subscription fees but of late I been thinking the right needs refining.
The fools of the world need to be yarded in one locality…the rabble on the streets at Canberra spring to mind, and kept out of other paddocks.
Comment of the night on the ABC 7.30 report from some old geezer who’d driven down from Young to see the prez; “look at these clowns- they need a bath, and this idiot over here has a bath-ring in his nose; he can’t blow it, and there’s snot running down his face- what a dickhead”.
These sort of people. This is the correct venue for Brown and Nettle.
Niall gives them creditablity in this comment.
Whether Bush likes free speech or not is irrelevent. The fact remains that here in Oz, we allow it, whereas where he hails from, you’re marginalised for doing so. Power & plaudits to Brown and Nettle for standing up to their convictions. Brickbats to those who voiced doubts but failed to be recognised. At least some have the guts and gumption to be seen to be real Australians.
With freedom of speech there are some social limits as in not saying f***k to your grandmother and this is where the children of the couple behind the rubble of the Berlin Wall get lost. It’s not guts or gumption to be socially inept – it’s just plain socially immature and if Niall’s point that we need to be thus to be real Australians then that is how we will be seen in the world. Socially immature.
A traumatized child is suing his parents for creating the circumstances that put him in a detention centre and left wing lawyers for keeping him there while they boost their company profits with pointless appeals.
Hang on…thats not it. He is suing the government. I don’t get it.
I can’t find a link but Stuart Rintoul raises the issue in todays
Australian. The boy, Shayan Badraie has previously been in the news and the subject of a
Four Corners edition that depicted the boy being manipulated by his parents to gain left wing sympathy. It worked but the rest of us, including the government are a little bit sceptical about it all.
They are Iranians, come here illegaly and are costing us a lot of money. The father, Mohammad Saeed Badraie, has the abilty and parental responsibility to alleviate the poor kids problems immediately. Stop traumatising your own son and go home.
Update: From reader Dave. The Age has a link
here
The refugee parents of an Iranian boy, 7, whom a Human Rights Commission investigation found to have been seriously traumatised by detention, will launch a $750,000 legal action against Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock and his department.
Mohammed Badraie, father of Shayan said he would follow his lawyers’ recommendation to seek substantial compensation for the pain and suffering inflicted on his son who still suffered from “night terrors and bed wetting” after being detained at Woomera and Villawood.
“It is not about money, although life is tough for us,” Mr Badraie said. “It is the need for an apology and an acknowledgement from Mr Ruddock for our unnecessary suffering.”
Mr Badraie has said he doesn’t want money so we only have to deal with the apolgy and acknowledgement. Ruddock’s chief-of-staff may like to use the following as the first sentence to the ‘apology’.
We are terribly sorry you inflicted all this unnecessary suffering on your children and by way of apology here are free tickets to Iran for you and your family.
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Friday night. Off to the famous Breakfast Creek to watch rugby. I had hoped Fiji might have permanently disabled a couple of All Blacks to help Australia’s chances later on but you can’t have everything. Still, good football, good friends and cold lager. Saturday night at home with family and friends and three consecutive rugby matches to watch. The old bar TV went on the blink and we had to steal my wife’s small TV to finish the marathon. Sunday quiet but in the evening Samoa frightened the Poms and showed two things. One, just how good a small Pacific nation can be with a minuscule budget and enormous courage; and two, the Poms are fragile under sustained attack. The Poms ran out winners after finally gaining ascendancy over the last 15 minutes of the game. The fact that they needed 16 men on the field to do it will be discussed by the WCR judiciary this week.
This morning I phone the local TV repair company and say I need trauma counseling- can he help. World Cup Rugby and the bar TV is on the blink. He will.
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According to Mat Price in this mornings Australian ABC bias did not rate with viewers. Well Haleleula- if they’re viewers, by definition they will not see bias. As Tim Blair said some time ago the proof that the ABC is biased is that you never hear the left say so.
32 column centimetres of confusing stats wasted on a ‘given’. I’ve generally given up watching the ABC as although they do have some quality shows, wherever they can they will present a political view and it is always left wing. Even when I do occassionally watch the SieveX reinactments and anti Bush/Howard/Iraq War/poor refugee shows I would never feel like making a pointless ‘doomed to failure’ complaint – I’ve already wasted too much time.
There were 147 complaints of anti US bias and 144 claiming the ABC was favouring the US. As the statistical base is comprised of centrist to left wings of the Labour party or people who have no political thoughts at all then it has no meaning.
Meaningless Matt! Like your comments on the Governor General.
Feeling unloved and unread – my infantry ego shattered – no-one was leaving any comments. Then I clicked on ‘comments’ and saw the message – the ‘free’ squawkbox software was only designed to sucker me in and once dependant on comments, like any junkie, I will pay willingly. I have done so and all will be back to normal in a day or two.
For those kind souls who will feel a need to tell me how to have ‘comments’ for nothing please wait till monday so I can start the week in a bad way.
In today’s Australian,
Michael Costello, does his best to make the Governor-General look bad but only succeeds in bringing his own motives into question. The piece basically says General Jefferys is conservative and thus he must be taken to task.
During his time as governor of Western Australia, as The Australian’s Matt Price pointed out, Jeffreys repeatedly voiced conservative views on single-parent families, the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras and de facto relationships. He also spoke of assimilation for Aborigines. Remarkably, he was often to the Right of the conservative Court government.
Repeatedly…….remarkably…… like the majority of Australians.
The case against General Jefferys so far is; He disagrees with left wing views.
He regularly convened meetings of informal think-tanks, and after he left he became chairman of a think-tank called Future Directions International. As Governor-General-designate he felt no obligation to stay off the historically highly charged issue of the Vietnam War. When the chief of the Australian Defence Force, Peter Cosgrove, expressed the view that it would be better if Australia had not been involved, Jeffrey said: “I believe passionately that Vietnam was a just cause in the circumstances of the time.”
For a start he is a decorated and respected Vietnam Veteran and is entitled to an opinion and to voice it. While General Jefferys has contributed to Australia in a meaningful way Costellos track record as the oft quoted ‘chief-of-staff to Beasley’ leaves him as a sideline commentator and a jaundiced one at that. The historically highly charged issue of Vietnam was so charged by the anti-west antics of left wing non-contributors and commentators. Sidelined opinions from sidelined people who never got beyond the Marx of their uni days.
The case against General Jefreys is still; he disagrees with left wing views.
Costello makes another obscure point.
Here is one example. The executive council, chaired by the Governor-General, must approve all bills passed by the House of Representatives and Senate before they can become law. The ministers who make up a quorum on the council frequently know very little about the bills in question, which are there to be approved pro forma, not debated. This Governor-General, however, seeks briefing papers on bills beforehand, and initiates discussion on them in the executive council.
From the Government web site The Federal Executive Council comprises all ministers, with the Governor-General presiding. Its principal functions are to receive ministerial advice and approve the signing of formal documents such proclamations, regulations, ordinances and statutory appointments.
Costello says;
The ministers who make up a quorum on the council frequently know very little about the bills in question…..
That’s a big call but if Costello is right, if I were Governor-General, I would want the ministers to be briefed on exactly what they are about to pass into law and yet Costello paints this as meddling. The professional world would paint it as doing his job in a professional manner.
I presume when Labour was in power the ministers knew everything there was to know about the bills in question.
Perhaps the Governor-General, who while affable, is something of a stickler for protocol, could focus instead on a role that is quintessentially that of a governor-general as commander in chief.
Now lets see, how can we make a man who has the unique ability to appeal to all and yet still maintain the protocol that is expected of the Governor-General sound bad…….
Affable but a stickler for protocol fits the bill nicely. If we can just restrict him to the parade ground we won’t have to confront his conservatism.
He then goes on to say (and here’s his chance to dump on Howard) that the Governor-General should welcome all the troops home, not Howard. He mentions that a citizen, Sebastion Clark, suggested this as if it had the same weight as a referendum. Hey, let the elected leader of Australia welcome them home if that’s what he wants. One moment we shouldn’t have regal appointees and the next moment elected leaders are castigated for leading. Prime Ministers have always welcomed troops home and Governor-Generals have always officiated at the more formal parades and award ceremonies. Costello’s article clarifies his lack of knowledge about matters of high office.
I guess we can’t win. When that chap Deane went around the country dumping on the elected government woe betide any right wing commentator that pointed out that Deane may be forgetting the protocol of the office of Governor-General.
Costello’s point is that General Jefferys is conservative and does his job professionally while abiding to the protocols of office.
Sounds good to me.
Don’t you just love the idiots writing to the press saying things like “If you don’t want to pay extra road taxes don’t speed”, “speed kills” and “if you speed you’re an idiot.”
Speed doesn’t kill by itself. There are a lot of factors involved such as experience, the condition of the vehicle and tyres, the weather, other idiots on the road, fatigue, testosterone, alcohol,…the list goes on. But if you believe the politicians and police traffic spokesman speed is the killer. It’s a pity stats don’t back that up.
“Every K over is a killer’ just doesn’t cut it as a stand-alone stat and is very clearly an exercise in getting the driving population to accept fines from cameras and radar for minor infringements.
The only speed that kills is “inapproriate speed” and that can be possibly be defined as low as 20 kph in a 60 zone if any of the real killer factors are present. The young hoon drifting around the corner on drugs and two wheels near my quite suburban house is most probably only doing 20 kph but if anything happens he has no escape path – bang – a little kid is killed. That’s what the TV adds should concentrate on. My doing a 120 on a vacant four lane highway passing a semi in a 110 zone is as dangerous as my old golden retriever licking a burglar to death.
The State Government, in this case, Queensland, have TV adds that emotively suggest that travelling at 61 kph in a 60 zone is tantamount to homicidal driving. See the little child killed…see the grieving mother weep…every k over is a killer. No mention of speedos only being accurate to 10% and the driver can’t tell the difference between 60 and 66 kph – only what his speedo reads. `
On the highway behind the B-Double semi that’s doing 110 downhill and 90 uphill you will have to break the speed limit either uphill or down to pass him in a passing lane . It’s unsafe to stay behind as you can’t read the traffic far enough ahead for safe driving but the wowsers would have you stay behind the semi for the entire journey.
They’re the ones that are totally unaware of the traffic around them. So long as they watch their speedo and keep it under the posted limit then they are safe drivers and a warm glow suffuses their bodies after every righteous trip. But watch them on the dual highway doing 90 kph in the right lane alongside another vehicle and blocking ten or twenty people moving on as it’s a crime to speed and the limit is a 100 so why would you want to pass me and I’m actually unaware of the trafic behind me as the TV adds say every k over is a killer and I need to keep my eye on the speedo – not the trafic, not the people on the side of the road, not the body language of the driver in the vehicle in front….just the speedo.
These dropkicks cause accidents but because the role of traffic branch is balanced in favour of revenue from the “every k over is a killer campaign” slow and dangerous drivers don’t show on radar. The hoon around the corner inappropriately speeding at 20 kph doesn’t show either – he’s safe because it has to be a k over before he’s a killer.
Steve Bredhauer, the local Transport Minister quotes;
Total crashes on a stretch of the autobahn in Germany dropped from around 300 per year to fewer than 30 when speed cameras were introduced.
Fine, and your next point is? There must be another point because that stat alone says nothing. What were the limits on the autobahn before speed cameras. If my memory serves me right there was no limit This is the road system where Mercs, Alfas, Massaratis, and Porches drove at over 200 kph and have done so for decades. Driving at 200 kph is a different arguement and unsupportable because that is where speed can kill – not 110 kph in a 100 zone.
What to do. While the state governments are reaping millions from these cameras I can’t see them letting a cash cow go. I note in Victoria they are talking about, or already have, implimented laws that bring the speedo tolerance to 3 or 4%. That is to say doing 64 k in a 60 zone will cost you. How on earth do we reconcile this with the fact that Australian Design Standards only demand 10% accuracy in new car speedos. Maybe I’m being cynical but that smacks of revenue.
Even the dropkick drivers I referred to earlier in this post will be guilty of speeding. Or will they? No, they will simply drop their speed 10% to cover Gods rules on speeding and create more accidents.
Police presence on the road is what we should have. Irrational drivers, dangerously unsafe vehicles or dangerous road conditions never show on camera but a patrol can impact on these real killer factors. Of course the state coffers bean counters will tell the Police and Transport minister that patrols cost money and cameras make money making their decisions easy – go for the money.
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