Humour
A news report from Iraq. Very funny!
Month: June 2006
Indigenous education
Professor Jon Altman, from the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at ANU Australian National University wants our brothers to stick to hunter gatherer career choices.
But the crucial issue that neither Johns nor Storry address is that of curricula. Too much emphasis is being placed in the current debate on providing opportunity for indigenous kids in very remote Australia for imagined futures as “lawyers, doctors and plumbers” (as suggested by Amanda Vanstone) and too little for futures as artists, land managers and hunters living on the land that they own.
The professor is obviously a good communicator. In one paragraph he has underlined one of the main problems with education of our brothers.
Unfortunately he has got it the wrong way round and although people reading the letter may well believe that because he is a ‘Professor’ then his word should be heeded, he is in fact suggesting we reinforce failure;
…… artists, land managers and hunters
Now there’s a career list that’s going nowhere. They need to be educated the same as the rest of the country’s kids so that when graduating they have a choice of careers; not some limited idea from an ‘out of touch professor’ that would have the boys learning ‘spear and woomera 101’ and girls swatting over ‘100 yam recipies for the busy mia mia wife’
The professor thinks we should pay heed to the ‘outstation’ mentality where Whitlam and Nugget Coombes believed they should all be living in the desert;
Rather than just seek mainstream education solutions to complex non-mainstream indigenous circumstances, we should develop curricula relevant to local settings and new enterprises and then see what impact this might have on attendance.
They really need a broad education that will allow them to view ‘outstation’ life for what it is; demeaning, pointless and set to fail.
Beasley clears the air
Kim Beasley has set the ground rules for the next election. It is a vote for the Coalition or a vote for the Unions.
KIM Beazley’s about-face on workplace agreements has won him a reprieve from leadership pressures and kept alive Stephen Smith’s chances of keeping his frontbench job as Opposition industrial relations spokesman.
Maybe, but I can’t see it presenting a reprieve from the voters. The Coalition wil suffer in the polls over the immediate future as the Unions throw millions into an emotive and selective TV assualt programme but in the long term, as the economy gets even better, the voters will see benefits.
Kim hasn’t just rolled over for the unions; he has also rolled over for the mad left wing with Albanese getting centre stage with his anti-nuclear ranting
On Insiders, he makes his position clear. While the rest of the country are busy counting the billions to be made from uranium sales dear Anthony is angling towards phasing them out
BARRIE CASSIDY: Now, I know that you maintain that it’s a mistake to refer to Labor’s policy as a three mines policy. You say it’s not. It is genuinely an anti-uranium policy?
ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well, it’s a no new mines policy. It’s a policy that I believe gets the balance right in that it recognises the problems with the nuclear fuel cycle, but also recognises that an economically responsible position is to guarantee all existing contracts. So, in effect, it’s a phasing-out policy.
BARRIE CASSIDY: So, when current contracts run out, that’s it? ANTHONY ALBANESE: That’s right.
The Left wing – the gift that keeps on giving
The Nuclear debate has a long time to run in Australia and I for one wouldn’t like to preempt the result but with the ALP’s position being ‘close down the mines’ then it at least leaves the debate to more rational thinkers…the Coalition and the electorate.
Wallabies and Socceroos Win
I’m not a soccer fan but I am Australian and I’ll watch any representative team on the world stage. I flicked back and forth last night for 80 minutes but got bored with the 1:0 score and gave up thinking, “Oh well, they tried”.
I flicked back just a few minutes later and had missed two goals. I saw the third goal and I applaud the team. If they go no further they have been further than any previous team and they deserve our praise for that.
At 2:00 am while conducting JP work for the local police, I was chatting with the guys and the conversation turned to rugby and the Wallaby win against the Poms on saturday night. My point was that much was made during the game, of the 20 phase play by the Poms, but more should have been made of the answering 20 phase defence by the Aussies. The entire 20 phases were played with one promotional sign – ‘Bundaberg’ in the background. 20 phases over a 20 metre square doesn’t bode well for the Poms. The game was rivetting and I would never dreamt of flicking channels – I would have definitely missed a try, a near try or some clever play. With the Socceroos, to return after 20 minutes woud normally present no change and that made last nights game so different.
The rugby was a scrappy game but we did win and it bodes well for us in the future. Let’s see how the Poms come back next Saturday night at Sydney.
As for the Socceroos, I’ll try and stick to watching the entire game next time
Lonely Planet politics
A line from the Good Mail in Queensland’s Sunday Mail that the journalist finds amusing as it feeds her prejudices.
COLLEAGUE and a friend planning a trip to Indonesia picked up a copy of Lonely Planet’s Indonesian phrase book. Both were tickled by the appearance of a translation for “I am Australian but I didn’t vote for John Howard”.
Michelle Collins, the journalist who compiles the Good Mail knows full well that Tony and Maureen Wheeler, the owners of The Lonley Planet, are anti-US/Bush/Howard activists so she has obviously included the line simply to fit in an undergrad anti John Howard giggle.
The Lonely Planet series are of good value for travellers but whenever they touch on politics readers need to be aware of their slanted views. Travelling the hippy trail does that for you.
Check Tony Wheelder’s blog and rejoice at his enlightend approach to politics.
Air raid kills al-Qaeda’s Zarqawi
It would appear the butcher of Baghdad has been killed by the US. The Jordanian-born militant, who is believed to have personally beheaded several Western hostages including Ken Bigley, a Liverpool engineer, was the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq after swearing allegiance to Osama bin Laden in 2004. He had a $25 million bounty on his head.
This report from News.com
THE al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in a US air attack near Baghdad, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said today.
“Today, al-Zarqawi was eliminated,” Mr Maliki told a news conference. His statement drew loud applause in the hall where he made the announcement.
ABC news reported that US helicopters hit a house near Baquba, 65km north of Baghdad, at sunset yesterday.
“Zarqawi was apparently injured at first … The Americans found him. They handed him over to the Iraqis and he later died of his injuries,” ABC said.
The BBC has an obituary and mentions Zarquawi was a rival of Bin Laden.
Both men rose to prominence as “Afghan Arabs” – leading foreign fighters in the “jihad” against Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
It was a far cry from Zarqawi’s youth as a petty criminal in Jordan, remembered by those who knew him as a simple, quick-tempered and barely literate gangster.
Another nail in al-Qaeda‘s coffin.
Can you pour a beer?
Bored…looking for a new career…think hospitality. Stell Artois has a cute little “Pour and serve a beer test” I found it while surfing the pub scene. My rescent discovery of The Public House led me to the Tap Room and an article titled Pour the perect pint and land yourself a job.
Go try and read The Tap Room while you’re there.
A letter from Iraq
From the Wall Street Journal, AKA The Opinion Journal
Letter From Iraq
Here’s an email we received from a U.S. military officer who asks us to withhold his name:
I am currently stationed here in Iraq and have been here for the past 11 months; I am an adviser to the Iraqis and meet them on a daily basis. I have been in many locations in the country and am involved on a daily basis together with the Iraqis fighting the insurgency.
The media manipulation by the insurgents is brilliant and extremely effective. The press has become a puppet for the insurgents; the insurgents know exactly what they are doing with these “massacres” (quoted here because the investigation has not been completed, nor have any charges been filed) and the political nightmare they will cause the current administration. Bodies are produced for film, and there is zero fact-checking by the media–the media eat up this “news” like there is no tomorrow. A couple of hundred bucks paid by the insurgents to a few guys/ladies in the town where this “massacre” occurred to make up some bad news and pine for the BBC’s or CBS’s or whoever’s cameras is a nice month’s salary for many and money well spent by the insurgency.
All the Arabs (Sunni and Shia), Kurds and Chaldeans I have come to know well here will tell you that Arabs are emotional people who tend to exaggerate. A lot. Experience has shown that “50 insurgents hiding out in XX location” is five, at most 10. “Three hundred dead” at the morgue is at most 40. “A huge cache with WMD” is 45-50 weapons. It is a cultural norm and is accepted over here as a norm. It is reported in the West as fact. With no fact-checking.
When we convoy, all in the town/village know when and where there is a bomb/IED/VBIED that is targeting coalition forces. This is not so true in Baghdad, but in the outlying towns all know. What is the culpability for those people in the village/town? Would the Marines be guilty in the U.S. under the same circumstances?
I do not know whether or not the Marines are guilty. A Marine’s job is to “close with and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver,” and I can guarantee its effectiveness. But the insurgents have the ear of the press. Hopefully the politics will be put aside for the investigation and the facts will be told, whatever they may be.
We live in hope but I’m sure the media can be relied upon to take a negative view prior to the release of the report on the investigation.
Latham escapes criminal conviction
Mark Latham has escaped having a criminal conviction for malicious damage recorded against him today. Instead he will be placed on a good behaviour bond for two years
The Director of Public Prosecutions dropped charges of assault and theft against him even though there was a previous incident of assault (cab driver…broken arm in 2001) and he did deprive the photographer of the use of his camera by stealing borrowing it, taking it back to his home and smashing it with a mallet in a shed.
I heard a radio report saying defence had asked that no conviction be recorded as he hasn’t been in trouble before. I know that he wasn’t charged for breaking the cabbies arm but it is public knowledge
Lathams main defence was that he was harrassed by the photographer and that was obviously sufficient reason for the judge to go easy on him.
Whatever the sentence, he’s still a thug in my book.
Hicks
In todays Australian Neil James, executive director of the Australia Defence Association takes the Law Council to task over their recent letter.
THE Law Council of Australia has unfortunately lapsed into domestic legal terminology in describing David Hicks as having languished powerless in custody for a period of 30 months before he was even charged with any offence. Such a mix of fact, supposition and error is the latest version of the common but simplistic claim that it is merely a matter of trying Hicks or releasing him.
It has been my contention since the day his capture was announced, that he should be detained until the War on Terror is finished. James agrees with me although he limits any such detention to the duration of the the Afghanistan conflict.
….Hicks can be detained as a PoW until the conflict in Afghanistan concludes, or the detaining power (under the Geneva Conventions) releases him on parole to a neutral country once he guarantees to undertake no further actions as a belligerent.
I note in yesterday’s Australian a couple of letters on the subject that were heavy on emotion and light on facts. Ruth Trigg from Normanville SA floors me with this statement
Each day this situation continues is a day of shame for the memory of all Australians who have died fighting for freedom for all of the citizens of this country.
A bit weird, really. All those Australians who have died fighting for freedom did so fighting people like Hicks. I swear some people think of Hicks as the nice guy next door and not the Taliban supporter he really is.
Geof Keynes from Beaumont SA (is there something in the water down there?) confidently predicts the Hick case will represent the end of the Howard Government.
I believe that the David Hicks issue is going to become this government’s pivotal issue, and that the government’s future will increasingly be determined by how it is handled.
Followed by this ‘I wish it were so’ statement;
The public perception is that the Government is too gutless to stand up to our partner, and tell them that enough is enough.
It might be ‘public perception’ at your dinner table, Geof, but I doubt if it has currency beyond the ‘hate Howard’ set.
For myself, I’m just pleased that the government haven’t caved into pressure from the Left to bring him home to allow the lawyers to make him a hero.
The war ain’t over yet.