Fun and Games

This week I’m flat out working on the November Great Legacy Militaria Auction to be held on the 19th of November at South Brisbane. (Keep an eye on this link for items to be auctioned) At 2.00 pm yesterday just before the Melbourne Cup, I was standing outside getting a break when I noticed a weirdo accros the street yelling at the cars as they went by. Loser, I thought….unwashed drug-hyped hippy bastard….maybe the local chapter of the Greens are having a Melbourne Cup party. I went back inside as my attention span is remarkedly short when these type come into view but I should have paid more attention.

AT 4.00 pm when I was saying goodbye one lady suggested I wait as there was some weirdo ranting and raving in the lane where I had parked my Discovery and maybe he had damaged my car. I didn’t even pause but ran down to my car ignoring the idiot as I looked for any damage. Sure enough the unwashed drug-hyped hippy bastard was there and he had kicked in/thrown something at the drivers door and was now lifting wheelie bins up on his shoulder and tossing them while yelling something that seemed to have the barely discernable words “f*****g Silvertails” in it’s construction.

If there ever was a guy who stood out it was this one. Tall, dressed in dirty black with his head shaven other than a one inch mohawke down the centre that ended as a pony tail at the back. Bits of metal hanging off his face with the demeanour of a junk yard dog and twice as ugly.

I opened the car, threw my lap top and camera inside and decided to reposition the vehicle to a safer location prior to my discussing the damage with him. I drove around the block, parked close but out of site, grabbed my digital camera and went back to the scene. I am, if nothing else, dogged and I was not going to let the bastard get away with it. It occurred to me that a good pic would help to later ID him in case he escaped. I had him framed in the lens and was just about to say “Smile sunshine” when the police turned up.

Situation diffused.

It took three of them to wrestle him to the ground and apply handcuffs. I noticed they prudently wore gloves and were very professional in the handling of the situation. The police vehicle had a lockup on the back that seemed to be made of fibreglass with a smooth finish inside. I thought it would be easier to hose out considering the type of clients who temporarily resided inside and with no sharp corners there would be less chance of client injury and the subsequent swarming of lawyers.

There was a lot of Melbourne Cup Parties in the neighbourhood and some civic minded party goer had called in the event pointing out that a four wheel drive had been damaged in the fracas. There were mobs of these people on either end of the short lane watching the unprogrammed floor show that unfortunately included my vehicle as one of the props.

I gave a statement to the police and indicated that I was going to pursue restitution. This next morning I was called to a local police station where they took photos of the damage and then I went and saw an old panel beater mate and had him assess the damage and supply a quote. $1670!

Man, am I ever going to seek restitution.

The vehicle’s insured but neither the insurance company nor I are guilty of any transgression, the unwashed drug-hyped hippy bastard is and as one police woman pointed out ” He was born in 1977 and it’s about time he learnt that as an adult he will be held responsible for his actions”

I’ve got a quid says he was on drugs, not just alcohol…Ice, one policeman suggested and I will hold him responsible. Years ago some thieves broke into my car and stole all my tools – maybe a twenty year collection of good Sydchrome and Stanley tools for all occassions. They went to court and were put on good behaviour bonds but I was left with the cost of replacing the tools.

Not this time mate.

Sheik Al-Halil still in the news II

The mufti’s attitudes towards women are a Muslim problem, right? Think again says Michel Costello

No, I won’t, says Kev.

Michael allocates some of his column space to the fact that there are plenty of examples of white guys raping, beating and generally treating woman poorly and he’s right but that’s not the issue here.

He points out that 30 years ago the situation of rape victims in Australia was bad. Society, he says, treated them as sluts. Well, I was very much around 30 years ago and I always thought of rape victims as just that, victims, and I have always been main-stream. The most common examples of these woman being treated poorly was from the legal profession as they tried to get the predatory males off the hook by suggesting that “she was a slut’ as they grilled her about her sex life.

However, I don’t recall any political or religious leader saying woman deserved rape if they dressed inapproriately. Nor do I recall any such person sympathising with rapists as they were convicted and sentenced to years out of circulation.

Until now.

If our society isn’t blameless in this matter then that was thirty years ago and as Kim Beasley says, we have moved on. When I, as a Protestant fell in love with a Catholic 30 years ago I had to undergo ‘training’ to marry her but that was all – I can’t recall the local priest suggesting I should be killed because I wasn’t a believer. The Mufti supports those who would do this and they are doing it today. Can we please remember that. (Coincidentally all of my training was conducted by Army Padres with ammo boxes as alters but I got sufficient ‘ticks in boxes’ to front the alter)

Mufti Taj Din al-Hilali hasn’t moved on, if anything he has regressed and he is a religious leader of some 300,000 Australians. What is worse is too many of those 300,000 have supported him by applause and too few have condemned him publically.

Michael Costello doesn’t excuse the Mufti but he does throw in the “we’re not perfect either” line and I think that blurs the focus. Others are quick to point to the Crusades for the same reason and the counter “Yeah, but that was centuries ago, we have moved on and the radical Muslims haven’t” is so obvious I wonder why people even raise it.

US Mid-term elections

Senator Kerry campaigns for the Republicans as he reminds the US that the Democrats come with left wing garbage.

Senator Kerry is a decorated war veteran who served in Vietnam. He said people were “crazy” to think he would denigrate America’s 140,000 personnel serving in Iraq.

Maybe people are crazy and are ready to believe that Kerry would insult servicemen because that’s what he does. Since he first come on the radar screen in the early 70s his stock and trade has been to dispage his own countrymen and curry favour with their enemies.

Kerry in 2006 addressing a rally;

You know, education–if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.

Kerry in 1971 addressing a Senate Inquiry;

They [US servicemen in Vietnam] had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

But as we know, Kerry is also a a man of action. He went to North Vietnam and helped the communists secure leverage in the Paris Peace Talks.

This from a guest at the Hanoi Hilton during the Vietnam war;

I was a POW for nearly six years, held in North Vietnam prison camps, including the notorious Hanoi Hilton, a place of unimaginable horrors — torture, beatings, starvation and mind-numbing isolation. When Kerry branded us “war criminals,” he handed our captors all the justification they needed to carry out their threats to execute us. Thanks to Kerry, Jane Fonda and their comrades in the anti-war movement, our captivity was prolonged by years. The communists in Hanoi and Moscow couldn’t have had a better press agent to spread their anti-American propaganda.

And this from Opinion Journal;

Kerry’s apology isn’t really an apology at all. Here’s a shorter summary of it:

1. What I said wasn’t really what I said.

2. I’m sorry if you misinterpreted what I was saying by taking it at face value.

3. Republicans suck.

Why it is so hard just to say, “I’m sorry for what I said”?

I trust we can get quotes from Kerry everyday from now until the mid-term US elections. It may help to remind Americans that this is what the Democrats think of the US military. Every house has a veteran and the main-steam America treats them honourably, unlike Kerry.

1 2