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.

Shark victim may never be found

That would be right. A 6 metre great white pointer is big enough to take a human in one bite and as we know, they have a long range and it could be hundreds of miles away by now. They have been tracked with satellite receivers from their home in South Australia to two-thirds of the way up the East Coast. Which makes me wonder, who was the game person who tagged the satellite receiver on a white pointer? Local Police believe the predator is long gone by now.
POLICE have said there is little hope of finding the body of a catamaran skipper killed by a shark at the Abrolhos Islands, 500km north of Perth. Geoffrey Brazier, 26, from the Perth suburb of Bicton, was snorkeling with three others on Saturday when he was attacked by what is thought to have been a 6m white pointer.
Poor bugger. I’ve been sailing in the seas over there in the North West and not lowering myself in the food-chain order was a priority. 6 metres, or 19.68 feet is big. The stuff of nightmares. sharks11.jpg A White Pointer eating the cage and looking to eat the boat. shark12.jpg A small Great White Pointer People will want revenge but I can’t see much point. Like the 6 metre crocodiles in that part of Australia – if you enter his space you’re putting yourself on the menu. You can hardly blame him for doing what he is programmed to do.
Sgt Miller said the situation would be assessed before any shoot-to-kill order was given. He said that the geography, tides and winds around the islands would hamper the search. West Australian Fisheries regional manager Russell Dyson said calls for the shark to be shot on sight were a knee-jerk reaction.
As terrible as it sounds, that is most probably the end of the matter. Footnote: Googling ‘white pointers’ is interesting.

Lightweight Lightfoot

According to this SMH article Senate numbers are behind the PM’s inaction in the case the Travels and Travails of Lightfoot. Could be right too. It’s also right that the only reason Labour are banging on about Lightfoot is they live in hope of some how or other eliminating the looming Coalition majority in the Senate. Labour most probably have battalions of research assistants trying to dig up dirt on Conservative Senators. Any dirt…any Senator. We?ve got get rid of the Senate majority those stupid voters gave Howard. Sorry guys. I don’t think this case will do it. I think in the long term Lightfoot will be found guilty of skiting in a childish manner, but I don’t think a happy travel snap with an AK47 in your hand is a capital offence. Lightfoot says he was just being friendly In other weekend news Labour win at Werriwa, take a ‘gimme’ and try to claim it’s the turning point for politics in Australia. Labour were never in doubt and the Liberals didn’t even bother fielding a candidate. If I were Labour I’d just be happy with the result and get on with forgetting about Latham. Any mention of the ‘L’ word won?t help their cause. Tomorrows news hounds will try and rationalize it the same way. Some will even talk of the end of Howard’s honeymoon and if that doesn’t work they will start up another ‘reliable sources’ or ‘a Liberal insider’ said today that Costello is tired of waiting for the baton, type article. Beazley would have us believe it was all a vote against interest rates.
Mr Beazley, who phoned Mr Hayes from the wedding of his daughter Hannah in Perth to offer his congratulations, had urged people to vote Labor to send a protest message to Mr Howard about the recent interest rate rise.
While Liberals say;
… it showed voters “were pleased to get rid of Mark Latham”.

Is Optic-Fibre Already There?

Nationals dream of new bush network The Nationals are talking about the proceeds from the sale of Telstra being used to creat a fibre-optic network in the bush When I was in the Northern Territory last year I had a lengthy conversation with a Telstra foreman who had a large crew in the Gulf country laying optic-fibre lines to link up Aborigines with the world. This was at Gregory Downs and is about as ‘Bush’ as you can get The article had a lot to say about wasting funds but the crew were laying optic-fibre networks.
Mick, (not his real name) the Telstra manager, told us horror stories of dealing with the local indigenous population. Cultural monitors demand $300 per day for their presence at any work site. Once the monitors on any Telstra job exceed 6 then there is a Cultural Monitor Supervisor who gets paid in excess of a $1,000 per day to make sure the monitors are doing their job. Telstra are expected to have an Archeologist on site as well and he is charged with ensuring the Optic Fibre lines are not desecrating culturally significant sites. Stories of the Archeologist picking up a rock and saying? ?This looks like an old axe? or whatever, and the monitor saying ?Is it? Oh yeah. You fellows have to go around? Ah, such science. Four D11 dozers are used on an optic fibre line. One to clear the scrub, one to level the path, one to rip the trench and one to fill. These things cost thousands of dollars per day so I would hate to think of the costs associated with rerouting the line a kilometre or two around a culturally significant piece of rock. The fibre optics get to a mission and Mick tells me that Telstra gives all the locals CDMA phones. Do they pay for them? No Do they pay for their calls? No
Is there any reader with more knowledge on this subject Is there an optic-fibre network already being laid in the bush? If there is, is it only to Aborigine missions and if so, why? Is the network actually being laid past white-fella towns or properties? I wonder.

IRA only Interrogators says Dunlop

Tim Dunlop takes a quantum leap in faith. He agrees with Bush for not hosting Gerry Adams but can’t help himself. Any positive comment about Bush must be put into perspective and balanced with a ‘torture’ comment.
Come on guys – if you get that the IRA’s summary justice is to be condemned, it shouldn’t be such a leap to figure out that torture deserves the same unreserved condemnation, should it?
Well yes, torture does deserve condemnation but Tim isn’t talking about torture, he’s talking about interrogation and will never know the difference.
Most of the right of the blogosphere is singing the president’s praises, which is more than fair enough under the circumstances. Still, it’d be nice if they applied the same moral clarity to their attitude towards the Bush administration’s licensing of torture and the introduction of extraordinary renditions and the like.
How anyone can compare garroting, kneecapping, dismemberment in front of family, blowing up innocents – woman, children, horses, Mountbatten and his granddaughter and other niceties of the IRA with Private English posing for a S&M shot or a terrorist being forced to listen to Michael Jackson music is totally beyond me. But then I could never understand why supposedly educated and intelligent people thought communism was a winner either. I figure they’re the same people.

Student ‘Targeted”

Student Stuart McMillen feels assaulted. And he was, by an ABC news team who couldn’t get to him quickly enough to beat up his 30 seconds of fame into an international incident. Stuart, trying to up his 30 seconds of fame to a minute shows his lack of understanding of world events when he ‘realized’;
“… that that was an Australian Army soldier pointing their gun at an Australian citizen in Australia, where there’s currently no wars happening, so I thought that was a bit inappropriate.”
Poor bloody diggers. Training for war, risking life and limb to ensure the ABC and other loosers can be free to put shit on them and an undergrad says there’s currently no wars happening The Army are on the move in the streets of Brisbane training for a very dangerous deployment to Iraq and a part of that training involves moving their vehicles through urban territory. Another part of the training involves carrying their personal weapons and soldiers are trained to carry their rifles in both hands and move the rifle with their vision. If the soldier is looking at you, so is his rifle. He isn’t targeting civilians. If he were to carry his rifle in any other manner then he is training for defeat. Civilians can be scared when and if the soldier suddenly adopts an agressive stance, lowers his profile, raises the rifle to his shoulder and aims it at you. That is aiming a rifle. That is when you phone up the ABC. And that will never happen in Australia. Anything else is carrying it in training Stuart, enjoy your 30 – 60 seconds of fame. You even have an old soldier’s permission to tell war stories about how you were targeted. Throw in a couple of AASLAVs with .50 cal MGs. Impresses the girls – does nothing for the rest of society. Right. You’ve had your 30 seconds – get back to study and try and read a newspaper every now and then. Look up Iraq, War, Australia’s involvement. Dropkick! UPDATE: Stuart, it’s not a gun, it’s a rifle Try this little poem to help you remember This is my rifle (brandish rifle) This is my gun (point to groin) This is for shooting (brandish rifle) This is for fun (point to groin) Courtesy Sgt Vic Edwards, 1st Recruit Training Battalion, 1963 (and all other Sergeants and corporals over the years).

‘Other’ Terrorist Organizations

The IRA/Sinn Fein Terror Inc are under the spotlight lately with the brave actions of five sisters of murdered Robert McCartney. In the latest it has emerged one of the Sinn Fein’s candidates for election, Cora Groogan, was present in the pub at the time of the murder.
BELFAST: Sinn Fein’s fitness for government has been challenged by the family of Robert McCartney, said to have been murdered by IRA men in a pub brawl, after it emerged that one of the party’s election candidates was in the Belfast bar on the night he was killed.
But it’s alright your Honour, I was in the toilet at the time – along with every other pub patron who in an amazing set of coincidental circumstances all felt a need to relieve themselves of the build up of Guiness at the same time. 70 of them have claimed to have been in the toilet together. What manner of pub is this Magennis’s. On first hearing of the murder I thought of a typical Irish pub, but no, what we’re obviously talking about is a full city-block monolith with sufficient rest room space to handle 70 punters at once. Lying hounds but terrified to bear witness to the murder. Over in the US the Sinn Fein have been disinvited to the White House for Wednesdays St Paddy’s day celebrations by none other than Senator Ted Kennedy. As Mark Stein says; (heads up from Tim Blair)
There’s a lesson there in the reformability of terrorists. The IRA’s first instinct is to kill. If you complain about the killing, they offer to kill the killers. If you complain about the manner of the killing, they offer to kill more tastefully — “compassionate terrorism,” as it were. But it’s like Monty Python’s spam sketch: There’s no menu item that doesn’t involve killing. You can get it in any color as long as it’s blood-red.
Some years ago the Irish Association of Queensland invited Adams to a lunch at the Brisbane Irish Club premises. Maintaining my ‘never support a terrorist under any circumstances’ policy, I phoned the club management and told them they could do so without the benefit of my membership fees and to this day I have been a non-member. I claim Irish anscestory but not the associated baggage of hatred of all things British. What Lord Lucan and others did to the Irish in the 1820’s is unspeakable, arrogant and so lacking in compassion that it was the base of the Irish being everywhere in the world, except in Ireland. But that was then and the IRA/Sinn Fein Terror Inc is now – and equally unnaceptable. Terrorism is terrorism under any form and the Sinn Fein group is as bad as it’s Middle East counterparts.

Wedgetail Ready

wedgetail.jpg The RAAF has taken delivery of it’s first 737 Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEWC) pictured above and described here. The project, nicknamed Wedgetail, after the Australian eagle, has become a model designation as Boeing sell the package to other nations as well. We will no doubt hear the term Wedgetail for some years to come. The ‘Wedgie’ will be famous He should be famous too, the old Wedgetail. He looks fairly tame on the roost with leather straps but in the wild with his 2 metre plus wing span and attention-grabbing call he’s a main player IMG_0080.JPG How’s this for a ‘don’t mess with me’ look? There is just no way these guys ever look disinterested. They always look like they are contemplating tearing your arms off and eating them. I took the photo in Litchfield National Park in the Northern Territory last year.

Readership

I now have a reader list from 62 countries. Admittedly the last five are only one from each country but then I never thought people from co (Colombia), fi (Finland), bn (Brunei Darussalam), gov (USA Government) (big enough to be a country in it’s own right), is (Iceland) and ma (Morocco) would be interested anyway. Should I be worried about the one guy from the US Government checking on me? I mean what department is he from? And Colombia? I hardly ever post on drugs. Interesting. 1200 page views a day is encouraging as well. Nearly 8 500 readers a week is an improvement on the days when I first started and looked daily, often without success, for one reader or comment. Small change to some but to me it is encouraging. Stay with me and maybe, just maybe, I’ll get better.

Italian Woman III

Natasha Bita in Florence files under the headlines –Italian spy ‘kept Americans in dark’
Nicola Calipari had instructed the deputy commanding general of the multinational corps in Iraq, Italian General Mario Marioli, not to mention the purpose of the visit to his US superiors, the paper said.
General Marioli says
“I asked Calipari if I had to say something to our American ally about the operation to liberate the hostage, but the response was that the ally must not be informed in any way,”
MSM still talks of several hundred rounds hitting the car.
The bullet-ridden car will remain in Iraq for the joint investigation.
In my day, ‘Bullet- ridden meant hundreds of holes – not just one. I noted one sceptic wanted to see a picture of the other side of the car. A couple of points. One – a car approaching a check point normally does so front on, and two – the thin metal of a car doesn’t stop a rifle or MG round. If it hits one side, it’s a good bet that it comes out the other side. Even communist bodies, thick as they may appear, don’t always stop rounds. Don’t ask how I know, I just know. sgrena-car-ap-1.jpg The ‘bullet-ridden’ car As we all know, from Chrenkoff, that Giuliana Sgrena hated Americans, then if we were to presume Calipari did as well, it might be safe to say his hatred has caused his own death. Couldn’t bring himself to let the Americans, with the checkpoints, rifles and machine guns, know that he was going to be rushing a checkpoint. Checkmate!

Another Walter Mitty

Understandably, claiming to be a soldier when you haven’t done the time rankles with those of us who have. Danny Robert Shakespeare is claiming it all and is now having lengthy discussions with the Feds.
HE CLAIMS he shot Osama bin Laden in the foot and served with the SAS in Afghanistan and Iraq. On other occasions he is a wealthy property developer or a former hitman with links to notorious bikie gangs.
No. None of the above. He is just a conman
Over the years, Shakespeare has falsely claimed he was a hitman and nephew of New South Wales organised crime figure Lenny McPherson, that he was related to well-known bookmaker Terry Page, and had links to the Gypsy Jokers motorcycle club.
More claims than an insurance thief.
Detectives say Shakespeare also uses his cover story of being a retired SAS officer, to convince people to give him money.
I didn’t know there was any money in being an ex SASR officer.
He typically claims that due to secrecy requirements of the SAS he does not carry identification.
Yeah. Right. It’s not as if you get to keep your ID Card when you leave the service.
He has tattoos of the word “Nina” on his left thumb, “Angela” on his right wrist with stars, a shark on either shoulder and a yin and yang sign on his chest.
Making him the only ex SASR officer I know of with tattoos. If you see him, ask him to drop in at the monthly SASR Association lunches in Brisbane. Email me for details.
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