Cute
My daughter recently bought a Golden Retriever puppy that redefines ‘cute’
What do you reckon?
This is a test picture post.
Month: January 2004
Queensland Politics
When I was first posted to Queensland in the mid 70s I soon decided not to read the front page of the local Courier Mail. While Joe Bjelke-Petersen’s National Party were in power they didn’t seem to follow the Westminister system of government. With no Liberal Party presence I gave Queensland politics the flick and concentrated on complaining or commenting about national politics.
Although I didn’t like Joe’s manner I fondly recall his answer to striking electricity workers who held the state to ransome for some weeks or months.
Go back to work, he said, or I will publish all your names and addresses in the press and the people can tell you what they think of your stand.
It worked and Queensland got thier power back
Time marched on, Joe left and I resigned from the Army. No longer obliged to be apolitical I joined the New National Party and helped in the post 86 elections. I eventually left, disenchanted with the power plays and egos of those on the periphery of politics and abysmal standards of some aspirants.
I now reside in the state without thought to politics at least while Labour is in the ascendency and my beloved Liberals can hold their AGM in a telephone booth.
Beattie, the media tart, will get back in albeit with a reduced minority and I figure it will take at least two terms of government before the conservative side of Queensland politics can offer any sort of threat.
Until then, I’ll return to my original stand on local politics and avoid the first few pages of the Courier Mail.
Indonesia Complains
Or is it just The Age?
This article appears in todays Age but for the life of me I can’t find it in any on-line Indonesian press.
Australia’s decision to look at buying sophisticated warships armed with long-range anti-missile defences was clearly aggressive and would be considered by the Indonesian parliament, a leading opposition MP in Jakarta said today.
Djoko Susilo, a member of the Indonesian parliament’s commission for security, defence and foreign affairs, said Australia’s consideration of air warfare destroyers for the navy capable of shooting down ballistic missiles in space was an aggressive move.
The Jakarta Post doesn’t mention it. Go see. One would think if a local senior opposition politician critisized Australia it would make to the local press.
Antara, the Indonesian News Service doesn’t mention it. While you’re there look at the International section. Nope. Not a mention.
Tried Googling and although my Indonsesian is a bit rusty these days I cant find any mention of Djoko getting up Australia.
Went to AAP and if they mention the item, it’s well hidden.
The Age wouldn’t have an anti-Howard agenda, would they? No, impossible. Must be me, ‘getting old – can’t read’ or just maybe ‘getting old – getting cynical’.
Is there a Dog?
I like the old joke about the dyslexic insomniac who lay awake all night wondering if there really was a dog. To me, it makes more sense than wondering if there really is a God.
I came from religious household but war service and education that demanded rational answers set me on a different path.
I’m reminded of the joke and my turning from religion by a piece in todays Age by Tony Wilson that ends with his thoughts on the Iranian earthquake.
In Iran, of course, a great many more laws need to be rewritten to remove a fear of God that is actively cultivated by the Government. People will say that God provides hope. Atheists like myself say that knowledge and a rational liberal democratic system of government provide more hope. If God controls the universe, he has just saved a 97-year-old and killed 30,000 others. Yet for the believers, it all just adds to His mystique.
The ‘Opiate of the Masses’ has come along way since Jesus, a charismatic politician and heir to the throne of David started a movement in the first century that promised a lot based on little. Faith is all you need and here the faith is translated as live a good life, believe in miracles and a devine being and a place in heaven will be yours. I can imagine ‘Heaven’ being a good drawcard considering the terrible conditions these early converts endured but the whole deal was sold on no evidence.
The early church leaders decided that the best way to convert non-believers was to let them keep some of the old beliefs and festivals but to repackage them under the new order. To cut it as a religious leader and be marketable one had to have done the virgin birth bit, performed miracles and undergone death and resurrection all at prescibe times in the year that fitted with ancient beliefs.
The packaging worked for thousands of years and survives all over the world but is strongest where education isn’t.
The first century answer to today’s Saatchi & Saatchi would be beside themselves with pride at the way it turned out. Jesus, a man, is now Jesus, Son of God. They didn’t even have to produce God. Believe me folks, he just is.
I believe this is the way it is but I have no problem with those who believe otherwise. It’s a free world and if you get solace or meaning from your beliefs then good on you. But, and it’s a big but, don’t try and force your beliefs down my throat and more importantly don’t look to disadvantage me as a result of your beliefs.
A case in point; a lot of fundamental Moslems would kill me if they could because I don’t follow their God. Not that the Christian track record is unblemished. Early graveyards in the Old world and New offer millions of dead as testament to the Christian campaigns. More men have died under the banner of ‘my God is better than yours’ than for any other cause.
Check out Tony Wilson’s article.
Another Great Aussie dies
To prove I’m not Army-centric It is with regret that I announce that Air Commodore William Henry ‘Bull’ Garing (Rtd), CBE, DFC, DSC has died
One of Australia’s most respected World War Two Air Force commanders, Air Commodore William Henry ‘Bull’ Garing passed away on New Year’s Day at the age of 93. AIRCDRE Garing played a key role in the allied successes at Milne Bay and the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, which finally saw the threat to mainland Australia subdued.
Lateline mentions ‘Bull’ Garing in their treatment of The Battle of the Bismarck Sea.
Before the Pacific campaign he won a DFC in the Atlantic when he single handedly attacked 5 Luftwaffe Bombers that were attacking an unarmed merchant ship. He was flying a a heavy Sunderland flying boat at the time and any pilot or would-be pilot should know that attacking bombers with a Sunderland redefines aggression. More>>
Defence (RAAF) has an article on ‘Bull’ Garing here.
Once again he did it well and we owe him.
Tom Daly dies
General Sir Thomas Daly has died aged 90. The ABC have a brief report here. They mention his being a Brigade Commander at Tobruk during WW2 and Commander of the 28th Commonwealth Brigade in Korea. What they can’t bring themselves to mention is that he was commander of the Australian Army during the Vietnam War when the Army, under his very capable command, killed thousands of communists, the very people that the ABC were supporting.
All other news sources quote the following line.
?Sir Thomas period as Chief of General Staff, from 1966 until his retirement in 1971, covered the height of the Vietnam War,? Mr Anderson said.
The Australian has more details
None of these early sources give his post nominals. Daly’s full title is Lieutenant General Sir Thomas J Daly KBE, CB, DSO.
A man amongst men – Brigade Major at Tobruk, Brigade Commander in Korea and Army Commander (CGS) during Vietnam. This pretty well covers the last 60 years of Australian military history from such positions of power and responsibilty that few could even begin to imagine. He did it well and we owe him a lot.
Libya turned by a strong hand
Young Gaddafi says it how it is and takes away from the Left any chance of saying it was ‘diplomacy’ that turned Libya. The Left will deny for ever that Libya’s about face came about simply because Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was worried about a regime change al lah Iraq. Sorry guys, it was a case of “Bush is serious this time – lets think this through.”
Itis an old tactic of the Left – repeat a lie often enough and the uneducated swill will believe it and vote out Howard and Bush.
Read what young Gadaffi says about it all. He was there and should know.
Terror Tactics
An article by Imre Salusinszky in this mornings Australian defines the anti-war/Bush/Howard push very clearly.
On Sept 11;
But Doug Anderson, the television critic for The Sydney Morning Herald, wrote that the US’s observance of the anniversary of the slaughter of nearly 3000 of its citizens “should define, once and for all, just how badly America does grief”. This was followed by the observation that extensive TV coverage of the anniversary ? in the US and Australia ? was really designed “to reinforce hatred of the Iraqis”.
And on Bali;
In The Age, Bob Ellis wrote: “We are paying in blood for John Howard’s arse-licking, ignorance and xenophobic bigotry.” In her internet diary, Sydney Morning Herald journalist Margo Kingston asked if the attack occurred because we “colonised (Bali) with our wants”.
So many people get paid to write and get it so wrong. They have one purpose in life and I can just see them sitting at their Apple Macs (couldn’t be PCs) working on ‘how can we turn this positive news into something terrible.
Go read, it qualifies a lot of foolish thoughts.
Red Jim
In October I blogged on Jim Cairns, the doyen of the left and hero to the Anti-Vietnam war protesters. Wayne Wood, at Troppo Armadillo obviously a member of one of the above groups, took me to task for blaming all Vietnam Veterans ills on Cairns.
Wayne muddies the waters with this statement.
Jim Cairns was an average politician who, after spending so long in opposition and without any useful role models, cocked up his stint as Treasurer and did pretty much what any of us would have done if a Junie wiggled her bum in our face. To try and make anything more out of Cairns’s life is simply beating up the sad tale of what can happen to an otherwise smart bloke when he tries to live out his sexual fantasy.
All of the left-wing and most of Australia’s apathetic, ‘Commercial TV news educated’ populace ignores the basic unpleasant truth of Cairn’s life. ..otherwise smart bloke living out sexual fantasies is one thing but being a communist, wanting and pursuing a communist victory in Vietnam to the disadvantage (read death and wounds) of Australians and being Deputy PM while also the President of the World Peace Council is another matter entirely.
I have no problem with Wayne it’s just that he is symptomatic of Australians who ignored the truth on the Anti-Vietnam campaign. Disagree? – No worries; the right to dissent? It’s yours; March through Melbourne’s streets in protest using your given rights to peaceful assembly? -Go for it.
Act as Chairman of the Local Soviet Union Peace body while Deputy PM? uh uh. Not on. Travel to the USSR and give them moral support and encourage more arms to kill fellow Australians? No – not included in our given rights. Invite a delegation of North Vietnamese industrial leaders to Australia while our wounded are still recovering in hospital? Likewise – very tacky.
John Ballantine, in this morning’s Australian Inquirer does a good job of outing Cairns and his Soviet sympathies
In November 1970, on returning from a visit to the Soviet Union, he declared he had found no more suppression of civil rights in Russia than in many aspects of Australian life.
What a startling statement. In November 1970 I was on patrol in Vietnam along with thousands of other Aussies. Cairns would have been an Opposition front bencher that year. How cute.
The Melbourne congress subsequently evolved into a more permanent body called the Congress for International Co-operation and Disarmament. Under Cairns and Goldbloom’s leadership, the CICD played a big part in mobilising the vast nationwide anti-war protest movement that became known as the Vietnam moratorium. It made history on May 8, 1970, when 75,000 protesters – one of Australia’s biggest public demonstrations – occupied the streets of Melbourne, bringing the city to a standstill.
The only group to receive advantage from the Moratoriums were the communists. The only group to be disadvantaged – the Digger.
Do I have an axe to grind? You betcha! Will I forgive and forget? No way.