And a Geeky Merry Christmas to you all
From friend Jean Madden
Author: Kev
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.
But wait, there’s more
THE man who brought Australia the phrase “but wait, there’s more“, Demtel promoter Michael Milne, was jailed today for eight and a half years on tax charges dating back to 2004.
Eight years six months more to be precise.
Expensive shout
DIGGERS serving in Afghanistan will be forced to pay $5 a can if they want to have a beer on Christmas Day.
The Defence Department is laying on the cheer by allowing soldiers serving overseas two beers this Christmas – but it’s making them pay, the Northern Territory News reports.
One soldier calculates Defence is making a killing. “That works out to be $120 a carton of beer,” the soldier said.
Peter Mansell, the Darwin RSL president, said that he personally thought charging for two beers would be “bloody wrong”.
But he also said there was no beer when he was serving about 40 years ago. “We were in the middle of the jungle doing what we had to do,” he saidThe Nominal Roll of Vietnam Veterans has Peter Mansell serving with 7RAR in Vietnam in 1970 and whereas it could be true (providing he was a rifleman) that he was often “in the middle of the jungle” it is also true that when he came off patrol he was allowed to consume alcohol….. …at 12 or 15c a can and although there was a legal limit of “2 cans per day perhaps” this generally translated as “enough to get drunk and forget your problems” if you weren’t warned for ambush or patrol duties the next day. I know, I was there Peter. Maybe you should stop suggesting us Vietnam Vets had it tougher than the Afghan boys. Remember how the RSL, some WWII vets and a host of hippies treated us when we came home and don’t fall into the same trap by denigrating their service In their defence, Defence says; … it already does a lot for its soldiers.
It pointed out it provided accommodation, food and welfare services to its deployed troops “at no cost”.What are they suggesting. That they are nice guys for sending diggers to war and not charging them for accommodation, food and welfare services? Get real!
Christmas Island tragedy
Questions have been asked about why navy and Border Protection vessels did not intercept the asylum-seeker vessel before it got into trouble.
The Harbour Master has already answered that question so why has it been raised again? It appeared the boat’s attempts to reach the island’s only safe harbour in mountainous seas tragically helped them avoid detection. Wooden boats in mountainous seas don’t show up to clearly on radar and all service boats were on the leeward side of the island anyway as they should be.
From the Harbour Master;
s soon as the danger to the vessel became apparent, the navy patrol boat HMAS Pirie and the Customs vessel Triton launched fast, rigid inflatable boats. But they had to travel several kilometres through 5m seas before reaching the stricken vessel and pulling survivors from the water. Locals at the scene said a navy vessel took between 30 and 45 minutes to reach the boat. By that time, it had been ripped apart after crashing into the cliff face. Harbour master Dave Robertson says the navy and Customs acted swiftly and heroically in manouevring their inflatable boats in dangerous conditions. “What the navy and Customs did to save that many people in those conditions is extraordinary. Those coxman are heroes,” he said.JULIA Gillard wants the Coalition to help the government determine the facts behind the deaths of asylum-seekers in the Christmas Island disaster. The Greens are invited as well so we know the outcome already. It’s all the fault of the terrible People Smugglers and they will recommend that everyone who can afford the $10,000 or $20,000 boat fare be allowed into the country before the genuine refugees. What it wont say is the government have been warned repeatedly that exactly this type of tragedy would occur if they didn’t fix the problem They haven’t fixed the problem…a tragedy occurred.
Rudd on the loose again
Greg Sheridan’s re-birthing of Rudd as a great Foreign Minister is becoming harder and harder to justify yet he sticks at it.
This week the third meeting of the Australia Israel Leadership Forum took place in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, with a day in Ramallah talking to Palestinian leaders. There is no doubt Rudd is well regarded in Israel and his authentic leadership on Iran is appreciated.The last sentence raises my eyebrows and seems at odds with the restr of the article. Sheridan goes on to say;
In an interview with this paper’s John Lyons in Cairo on Saturday, Rudd said: “Our view has been consistent for a long time and that is that all states in the region should adhere to the [nuclear] Non-Proliferation Treaty, and that includes Israel. And therefore their nuclear facility should be subject to International Atomic Energy Agency inspection.”The Arabs love it while Israel is bemused. With only one Israel and a host of Israel hating Arab nations having a vote at the UN I can’t help but think Rudd is just padding his resume for a post-politics appointment. I hope he gets it real quick so we can stop putting our long time relationship with Israel in jeapoardy.
New laws required
WIKILEAKS founder Julian Assange may not have broken the law by publishing leaked diplomatic cables, Treasurer Wayne Swan has conceded.
Then change the law!
The Wikileaks cult
With the great Australian/US/Western civilization hater John Pilger supporting Julian Assange and his Wikileaks it is clear that the whole circus is about denigrating the status quo of civilization as we know it.
The Left are even suggesting that the public should know all about every diplomatic comment, thought or transmitted cable which of course is ludicrous.
Doesn’t work that way…never will.
We currently have the crazy situation where the world’s media are involved in serious discussion about the rights or wrongs of the agenda of an anti-western hippie.
There is no discussion. He is wrong to release all that information on the internet and Manning, his stated source, is clearly guilty, on his own admission, of providing Assange with classified information in contradiction of all the rules that apply to military personnel.
In previous days the crime of treason covered this type of activity but since the ascension of the anti-western human rights legal activists things are less clear. If that is the case then we need legislation to cover these types of anti-establishment crimes and we need it soon.
We need to get back to the real problem Australia has at the moment….the abysmal record of Julia Gillard and her government and what we can do about it.
Sacrifices to the Climate Gods necessary says Gillard
PRIME Minister Julia Gillard has warned that Australians face a decade of rising electricity prices and the risk of blackouts unless a carbon price is introduced next year.
“What we can really do is be really honest with people about the causes of sharply rising prices – and people have experienced sharply rising prices,” she said. “One of the causes is under-investment in new electricity generation and a reason for that is lack of certainty about carbon pricing.Well, yes, that could be one of the reasons for under investment but if Julia wanted to be really honest about the cause she could also mention that infrastructure has taken second place to the ALP buying Green votes. And when she talks about lack of certainty about carbon pricing she is going to have to talk a lot more to sell the theory that offering financial sacrifices to the weather/climate gods will actually give a return. Never seemed to work for the Incas.
PayPal acts responsibly
WIKILEAKS faced a fresh threat to its survival as the online payment service PayPal cut off the account used for donations to the whistle-blowing website.
Good! That’s a start. Now arrest the little hippy and close down his website before he does any more damage.
Garrett in the news again
THE launch of the Gillard government’s revamped My School website could be delayed for months after Schools Minister Peter Garrett was forced to concede that financial data for some private schools contained serious errors.
The much anticipated new version of the website, which was due to go live today, will not be launched until next year, Mr Garrett has confirmed.
Simply amazing that he is still a minister of the crown.
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