ANZAC Day targeted
ANZAC Day commemorations may offend some religious and ethnic minorities, a new report has claimed.
Who cares?
Month: April 2007
The Australian Education Union tells lies
THE Australian Education Union (AEU) is simply lying. In it’s add currently showing on TV they claim Howard ignores public school education.
Just to have it on record on this site I quote the Australian
The campaign mirrors a $1 million advertising blitz by the AEU against the Government at the last election, urging a boost in funding for public schools. But what both union campaigns failed to mention is that public school funding is a state responsibility. The federal government does provide the majority of taxpayer funding for non-government schools, as the state governments do not fund the private sector. But overall, government schools receive a higher level of government funding than private schools.
Sixty-seven per cent of students are in government schools that receive 75 per cent of total taxpayer funding. And under the Howard Government’s funding formula, which is based on income demographics for the school catchment, the poorest non-government schools can receive a maximum of 70 per cent of the taxpayer funding provided per government school student, with a sliding scale down to a minimum of 13.7 per cent.
The AEU campaign conveniently leaves out the fact that commonwealth education funding to government schools has increased by 120 per cent since 1996, while enrolments have risen by 1.1 per cent over that period. And it must be remembered that the state funding for public schools comes largely from commonwealth grants.
They lie, it was ever thus
We’ll all be ruined
There still are some Australians not panicking enough about Global Warming so this quote makes it into todays Australian
A climate change business risk analyst, Karl Mallon, yesterday told a Sydney forum the cash value of a home would be cut by up to 80 per cent if it were deemed uninsurable for a severe weather event caused by global warming.
There, that should do it.
A climate change business risk analyst! Another industry has been spawned to mop up the otherwise unemployable naive and gullible.
Maybe Rudd should get onto this. I can just see it now. If you re-elect Howard the value of your property will fall by 80%
Vale RN
I must say I feel uneasy about the Brit sailors captured and subsequently released by the Iranians. The RN doesn’t look good and the MOD has ricocheted back and forth about letting the hostages sell their story to the press. First they can and now they can’t which means two have sold their story for a motza and the other 11 can’t.
People are furious that the hostages were initially allowed to sell their stories forcing the Admirals hit the rewind button.
Second Sea Lord Vice Admiral Adrian Johns said earlier today that the review of procedures was under way. All of a sudden we need a review of procedures that have stood the Brits in good stead for hundreds of years.
HMS Cornwall is a type 22 ‘stetched’ frigate and is reasonably well armed with 114mm (4.5 inch) MK 8 gun Goalkeeper close-in weapons system (CIWS) Sea Wolf anti-missile system 2 x Quad Harpoon missile launchers 2 x 20mm Close range guns NATO Seagnat Decoy Launchers
She has a cruise speed of 18 knots and a sprint capability of 30 knots and has tons of radar sensors which raises the question: why the hell didn’t the Captain move in and cover his troops. Am I to believe that it is RN Standard Operating Procedures to allow crew to approach unknown shipping without ‘Mother cover” or sufficient heavy weapons to guarantee their own safety?
Some RAN or RN readers may correct me here but I cannot begin to imagine how the Captain could allow crew members to wander around the ocean miles from their ship in rigids armed only with personal weapons. Surely risk assessment would consider the possibility that some ships may not like being bordered and might fight back. I would if all I could see from horizon to horizon was a couple of rigids.
Over at LP armchair warriors have picked up on a new military buzzword ‘ROE’ (Rules of Engagement) and point out that ROEs in force precludes the Captain firing on Iranian shipping. Of course it does, the Brits aren’t at war with Iran but that doesn’t stop the captain keeping an eye on his sailors.
Full steam ahead…move the frigate over…..staring down the barrel of a 4.5 in quick firer backed up by heavy machine guns would tend to take the revolutionary zeal out of the Iranian Navy.
Why didn’t he? If he was too far away to do it, why was he?
Reports state he was ordered not to fire and that’s reasonable but why couldn’t he adopt an aggressive posture and frighten the Iranians off.
Maybe because he was out of range which gets back to the original question. Why?
Remedial Step One: Never let anyone come between you and your off-ship troops (look at the radar screen to see if there are any unknown boats nearby) and never let them get out of range.
Interesting article from MOD Oracle
Iranian intelligence officers told the 15 British captives they first became suspicious about their activities after watching an interview with one of them on British television.
On 13 March – 10 days before the 15 were seized – Channel 5 broadcast an interview with Captain Chris Air, one of the captured Royal Marines, in which he stated that his crew’s role was to liaise with Iraqi vessels to ‘let them know we are here to protect them, protect their fishing and to stop any terrorism or any piracy in the area’.
Remedial Step Two: Keep the media off the ship. They tend to feed intelligence to the bad guys – some even do it deliberately.
The days of number, rank and name only are obviously over but I would’ve thought that Jack Tar could have waited a bit before rolling over. Coming home with ‘Show Bags’ like they’d been to the local fete didn’t help their image nor does the happy snaps provided by the Iranians. Did they ever, for a moment, consider the reputation of the Navy.
A local Bishop personifies what is wrong with the Brits at the moment;
A leading Church of England bishop has claimed the Iranian president showed a better understanding of “moral and spiritual” values at the end of the naval hostage crisis than Britain’s political leaders.
What’s gone wrong?
And this;
The youngest captive, Arthur Batchelor, 20, sold his account to the Daily Mirror, and described how guards had mocked him, calling him “Mr Bean”, and said that he had he cried himself to sleep at night.
Poor Arthur.
The reputation of the once great Royal Navy has just flat-lined.
All in the family
James Patrick Roughan, in the company of another man and presumably a lot of drugs, stabs a teenager 133 times, decapitated him and played bowls with his head.
James is a nephew of Katherine Knight, an abattoir worker who stabbed her de facto husband, John Price, 37 times in the NSW town of Aberdeen, northwest of Newcastle, in February 2000. She then skinned his body, cooked his flesh with vegetables and made a soup out of his head.
Katherine is the half-sister of Patrick John Roughan, labour activist, former campaign worker for sacked NSW Aboriginal Affairs Minister Milton Orkopoulus and pivotal in organizing the picket of Mudgingberri Station. Mudginberry Station was another union coup when they went on strike for more money. The abbatoir was forced to closeed and the workers and management lost their income.
Patrick has been charged with two cases of aggrevated sexual assault on a 9/10 year old girl.
Katherine Knight has five other brothers, apart from Patrick, and a twin sister. I wonder what the rest of them are doing?
It’s a worry.
UPDATE:
NOT GUILTY:
FORMER Swansea ALP branch president Patrick John Roughan, 63, has been cleared of two counts of sexual intercourse with a nine-year-old child.
Army Captain arrested
POLICE arrested an army captain and two others today over the theft of seven army rocket launchers allegedly supplied to criminals and terrorists. About 6am, police from the counter-terrorism command raided the captain’s Wattle Grove home and arrested him.
How embarrassing.
In all my time in the Army I can’t remember a case of an officer behaving so dishonourably. Should the case go to trial and he is found guilty then he should feel the full force of the civil and military law.
In todays climate of potential terrorist attacks on woman and children, to steal, hold and sell such weapons is tantamount to treason.
Simply not on old chap
If found guilty I would like to see him drummed out of the Army on the way to prison. Remember the good old days? The Regiment on parade…..tear off his regimental accoutremants and rank……snap his sword in half and march him off with a long drum roll.
Chief of Army Lt General Peter Leah agrees with me, although not with the drumming out of the Army bit, and is quoted as saying;
ANY soldier who breaks either civil or military law by stealing and selling military weapons on the black market is a disgrace to the uniform.
Damn right.
UPDATE:
The army guys have been named:
Shane Della-Vedova, a 46-year-old army captain from Wattle Grove in Sydney’s south-west, allegedly stole the 10 Light Anti-Armour Weapons from the Australian Defence Force (ADF).
He faced Sydney Central Local Court today with his alleged accomplice, 38-year-old former army officer Dean Taylor, of Mt Annan in Sydney’s south-west.
Della-Vedova was apparently an Ammuniton Technical Officer and the report mentions the possibility of more Army gear.
Mrs Orellana’s husband, Hector (a neighbour), often went over to the Della-Vedova house to talk. Usually he went in through the garage, where forensic officers and detectives pored over large green army containers yesterday.
The other guy, Dean Taylor had apparently been an Army fireman before he resigned and started a business of his own. Maybe the rockets were seed money for the business
Naturally, the press found someone to quote the mandatory “he was a lovely chap…great neighbours…just the most beautiful and generous man I have ever known and other meaningless phrases.
Howard Derangement Syndrome at play
The Prime Minister says far too many Australians are retiring at 55, and other countries are stealing a productivity march on us with more workers in the 55-64-year-old bracket still contributing to economic growth.
“If everybody worked at least until they were in their middle to late 60s, that would make an enormous difference,’’ he told ABC radio. He advocated scaling back slowly, perhaps working part-time as a more gentle stepping stone to retirement.
“There are many, many people I know who have retired after a very, very busy life and suddenly they’re doing nothing and they go to pieces,’’ he says
All of which is reasonable – he doesn’t say we are all going to be chained to the work bench until we die – just that we shouldn’t neccessarily rush into retirement and if people want to work later than the magic 65 then let them.
Stephen Lunn, social affairs writer for the Australian puts his spin on it and the Howard hating collective swarm
……Many people are sick of working in dysfunctional workplaces which are only becoming worse under Howard’s workplace laws.
……Another version of work till you drop. Howard should wake up to himself
……What sort of a con job is this from Howard?
……I just wish this silly little man and his nanny state would disappear
And what the hell does David Hudson of Adelaide mean by this diatribe?
please note that 800,000 separated parents across Australia are ‘forced’ to work until DEATH, never mind till 65 to meet unsustainable deemed “child support” arrears that outlast even their children’s lives in many cases.
At the latest count there were 1527 dead in 2002/3 ALONE ( see Hansard p171 below) RIP.
His reference just states that In 2002-2003 there were a total of 1 527 male payers recorded on the child support computer system as having died. This is the latest data available.
People do die irregardless of what computer system they are on but the evidence pointing to John Howard murdering them all is somehow missing
What is it with these people? Are they so deranged by their hatred that reason leaves their mind?
Was it ever there?
Crime does pay
CONFIDENTIAL documents filed in a Queensland court lift the lid on the secretive world of celebrity book negotiations, revealing that Pan Macmillan paid $350,000 for the rights to drug-smuggler Schapelle Corby’s story.
The Australian Women’s Weekly paid a further $110,000 to publish an extract from My Story, the memoir Corby co-wrote with Kathryn Bonella. The publishing contract shows that Schapelle’s sister, Mercedes Corby, is entitled to 85 per cent of the $350,000 publisher’s advance and any future royalties earned from the book, which has sold more than 100,000 copies.
That should buy a lot of marijuana for the ‘Corby Drug Collective’.