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Digger named Aussie of the Year

And the Ingrate Idiots of the Year gather to comment about it in the Australian‘s Your Say section. More than half of the commentors rushed off to the tool shed to get their axe to grind. The plain loopy;
  • Hope all the troops come home safe and help us get rid of the lying scum that sent them there….Dave of Japan
  • What? for killing innocent people in an illegal invasion…Muskiemp of Bundaberg Qld
  • I question the ethics of anyone prepared to kill-for any reason….Niemoller of Darwin
  • David Hicks, you mean?….Holsworthy
  • If the army is so great why haven’t Howard’s kids joined up?….smart_kid of Outer Space
and, the “I’m not getting enough pension” brigade
  • Like many other fine Australians, I’ve been dumped. No longer able to work, forced to sell the house, can’t even pay for the kids school fees. My life is stuffed, over, I’ve lost everything I’ve ever worked for and/or ever had including my sanity. Paul Dignon of Adelaide
  • It is a national disgrace the way the Howard Governement treats ex Diggers by way of the indexation of TPI and EDA entitlements and by way of the indexation of the ADF superannuation entitlelements…..Bernie McGurgan of Brisbane
Paul Dignon is an activist who served in East Timor and claims PTSD from his service. The DVA are reasonably demanding he give them some hint as to the trauma he suffered that might cause the PTSD and to date he has obviously not satisfied that requirement. I’m not suggesting there was a lack of trauma in East Timor, far from it, but if Paul has a case the DVA don’t know about it yet. He subscribes to a forum that has a graphic advising “Thinking about a military Career? Think again!! The government does not honour it’s promises to veterans” and that’s simply not on. He convened an activist group that tried to politicise ANZAC Day by encouraging veterans to wear an orange armband to support his cause and also got involved in a death threat against Defence Minister Billson. Bad moves in my books but of course the ABC loved it and picked up on it at least two states. He has a web site of sorts here full of innacuracies and exaggerations. If he has a case for pension he needs to learn to play the DVA’s game not fight them. I have posted on this site before when I had an email altercation with one of the main players and nothing seems to have changed. Bernie McGurgan, who I know from my army days, simply doesn’t like the Howard Government which is his right but I question his ethics when he uses a post naming the Digger as Aussie of the year to vent his anti government feelings. He was an officer and in my mind has an obligation to support the ADF, not use them to beat Howard over the head with “I’m not getting enough pension” stories. The comments are a bit dissapointing but that’s life. I left a comment there as well;
Some of you need to reread the question. It reads..”What do you think of the The Weekend Australian’s choice of Australian of the Year?” not “How can you put down on the Digger as Aussie of the year” or “How can you inject your ideology into the choice of the Digger as Aussie of the year” I’ll answer the question. I think it is well deserved and thank whoever made the decision. As witnessed by some of the above comments the digger does his work in the knowledge that some of his countryment don’t appreciate it yet he still strives to improve the lot of others and to maintain the security of Australia.

Armageddon approaches

The Doomsday Clock returns. Used for years by scientists to terrify the uneducated masses about the threat of nuclear war, it is being recycled to try and achieve the same effect with global warming. Apparently we aren’t panicking enough although some apparently are. I have posted previously on the poor people of Tuvali who believe in the new Book of Revelations and supposedly are sufficiently moved to panic at the correct scale and head for higher land.
This ideology has the Pacific Islanders reading the new Book of Revelations and demanding migration rights to Australia and New Zealand because their low lying islands are going to be swamped. It says so in the New bible. It would also be pretty cool to live in Australia with it’s social security and all but the islands aren’t about to be swamped. Scientists and other interested parties are argueing over whether the rise is .07mm a year or 5mm a year and even then king tides, natural sand redistribution, native attempts at building on the shoreline and the effects of cyclones must be factored in.
Back to Stephen Hawkin
CLIMATE change is as great a threat to the world as terrorism and nuclear war, cosmologist and mathematician Stephen Hawking said yesterday as the “doomsday clock” – a countdown to Armageddon that was begun by scientists in 1947 – was moved forward two minutes to stand at five minutes to midnight. Professor Hawking, of the University of Cambridge, said the twin dangers of global warming and nuclear proliferation needed to be tackled urgently. “Since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, no nuclear weapons have been used in war, though the world has come uncomfortably close to disaster on more than one occasion,” he said. “But for good luck, we would all be dead.”
It wasn’t ‘good luck’ that saved us; more Kennedy’s resolve and Kruschov’s rare moment of clarity but I guess that’s not within Hawkin’s narrow field of expertise. Armageddon, The Apocalypse, over population, the second coming of Jesus, Nuclear Winter and Global Warming are all a form of recycled religion and should be treated with a healthy dose of skepticism. I’ll believe us mere humans, present on this planet for a tiny period of it’s existance, have had the impact on her weather as is being suggested, a moment or two after someone speaks knowingly on long-period natural weather cycles. Or, prove to me that we are not enduring a slightly hotter period of a 10,000 year cycle that may or may not be caused by each planet’s proximity to it’s neighbour and the sun and her sunspot behaviour in some yet to be understood galaxy juggling. From MadSci Network
….there might be a connection between sunspots and climate on much longer time-scales. For example, from 1645 to 1715, the sunspot cycle turned off, and not one sunspot was visible during these years. During about the same time, the “Little Ice Age” happened, in which temperatures in Europe fell several degrees C. Again, correspondence doesn’t imply causation, but it’s something to think about.
If a scientist says ‘but it’s something to think about‘ he means he can’t disprove it; all of which goes to prove little other than we know too little. Time will tell but I have no immediate plans to sell out and move to the high country in some colder clime. UPDATE: In comments, Harry Buttle links to an article headed “The Sun Moves Climate Change“. An interesting read for those who are not yet signed up members of the Global Warming Church of the Latter Day Alarmists and are still open minded enough to read other potential gospels.

Kampot Cambodia

A very small group of interested Cambodians, Australians and Dutch, myself included, are setting up a scheme to help Cambodians – well, a very small group of them – to come out of the horror and chaos that was Pol Pot’s genocidal regime. We have come to a small town on the southern coast called Kampot where years previously there had flourished a series of pepper plantations that marketed Kampot pepper to the world. As early as 1888 there are records of pepper being grown and exported by the Chinese and later when the French colonialized the area the pepper took on greater value and a French chef in Paris wouldn’t think of offering any meal without Kampot pepper along side the salt containor. The first part of our trip to Kampot is described here and takes us from Brisbane Australia to Kampot. When we arrived at Phnom Phen airport we were met by two people already involved in the project. One, a Cambodian national name Nareoun and the other, an expat Dutch woman name Jose. Jose had been involved in NGOs in Vietnam and Cambodia and has an abiding interest in lifting the circumstances of the local people. Nareoun was a survivor of Pol Pot’s genocide. He was a small child when his family were taken to the Killing Fields and on the road he was grabbed by a local peasant who could see what was going on and hid him behind some scrub. When the Khmer Rouge soldiers came back for him the farmer said he was his son and they left satisfied. The boy was smuggled out through the islands in Southern Cambodia and ended up in Hanoi at an orphange. He never saw his parents again. He grew up and later returned to Cambodia where he secured a government job involved in making sense out of the chaos that had been Pol Pot’s genocidal regime. When the Vietnamese attacked to quell Pol Pot, his brand of communism being too severe even for them, Nareoun’s potential was recognized and he received a scholarship to a university in Hanoi. At this university he met a Dutch Professor named Ardrie who also recognized his potential and a relationship developed. Some years later a son of my friend and friend of my son, Tim, moved to South East Asia and worked, and still does, for an American company that handles sea food processing plants in SEA. When looking for plant managers he sought out educated locals and eventually employed Nareoun as a manager in Cambodia. Tim went back to Cambodia where Nareoun had some land and a house on the river at Kampot; fell in love with the place and laid claim to a block himself. He looked around Kampot, saw the tragedy that it was with it’s poverty and aftermaths of war and decided to help. Through Nareoun, Tim met Professor Adrie P. van Gelderen at Hanoi and began to talk of the problems in Cambodia. Tim’s business of buying and packaging seafood for the US was a case in point. All produce from Cambodia was sent to Vietnam or Thailand and packaged there. Nobody wanted to buy Cambodian products so the country wasn’t even getting the flow on. Even today in Angkor Wat all the hotels buy their food from Thailand. The group decided to do something about it and the plan was hatched to buy some land in Kampot, install some farmers out of the Thai refugee camps, plant pepper and lift their lives. The land was duly purchased through the auspices of a Dutch ” Affiliate” roughly equivalent to a ‘Foundation’ in english and established by the good proffessor. Professor van Gelderen had spent years in South East Asia and had developed a desire to bypass the standard asian and western bureacracies to get help to the underpriveledged where it mattered; at their homes and villages and in their schools. He has been quoted as saying;
Education is the answer to structural and sustainable improvement of people’s living standards
…and so have I. At the same time as Nareoun was going through his ordeal a young Cambodian girl, Neang, was going through the same ordeal and ended up in the same orphange and both of them went through uni together. A long lasting friendship developed. Neang is married and lives in Phnom Pen but they have joined forces again to help their people. Neang came back to Cambodia after Pol Pot was displaced and ended up being the Private Secretary to Norodom Sirivudh, Supreme Privy Counselor to His Majesty the King and Parliamentary Member. Norodom Sirivudh was appointed King but declined, believing he could do more for his people as an MP. His nephew was appointed King and Norodom does advise HRH. Later on during the trip we had afternoon tea with this man courtesy of Neang. Norodom had heard of our project and wanted to hear what we had to say and likewise, wanted us to hear what he had to say. More on the smoko with royalty later. We met Neang for the first time at the BBQ and if ever a project was graced with a class act then Seang was it. Motivated, compassionate, educated, gracefull and an integral part of the ruling class of Cambodia she was obviously going to have an impact on whatever happened. On the trip down we had been promised a BBQ at Nareoun’s place on the river with transport provided in the form of a traditional Cambodian river boat, a cow on the spit and plenty of local beers. It sounded good and turned out to better. Our first sunset in Kampot we waited on the river bank for the traditional Cambodian boat to arrive the traditional Cambodian way – an hour late. We waited at the Rusty Keyhole Bar and developed a taste for Beerlau while waching the sun set over the river. waiting….waiting….waiting The boat duly arrived and after some fuel feed problems we were underway. The boat stopped at a local house to pick up more partygoers and I noticed a small dog scrambled on board. The dogs owner noticed it as well and picking it up nonchalently through it overboard….not invited! The boat took off and the dog was last seen swimming in circles looking for a landing point. We went upriver through magnificent jungles and eventually Brian points out Nareouns house on the river banks. The boat kept going. After some hundreds of metres I asked whether he knew if the boat ‘Captain’ knew where he was going. The question was raised; there were initial language difficulties to overcome but eventually it became apparent that the ‘Captain’ didn’t know where the hell were going and ‘Yes, they would now head back towards Nareoun’s place’ It’s reasonably dark now and we are headed for a landing that we can see by virtue of a light at the end of a jetty. What the light didn’t shine on was the Lantana bush that the ‘Captain’ unerringly targeted as we approached land. We alighted with some difficulty as the jetty was approximately 1.5 metres below the level of the bow and it all had to be done through the lantana. Woman and children first….many helping hands and then the men had to lower themselves down by their arms to reach dry secure land. We had arrived at the BBQ and it turned out to be a significant start to our visit. We met all the local players, expats, others with a dream to reinvigerate Kampot Pepper and still others who for different reasons have an impact on what happens in Kampot To be continued…..

Hicks

I have said from day one of Hick’s incarceration at Guantanamo that he should be treated as a Prisoner of War and released when the conflict is over. I have been bemused by legal opinion that demands he be charged and tried or released. To me this would be the same as if an Australian had left Australia in 1942 to train with and fight for the Japanese and was later captured on the battlefield. He would’ve been incarcerated until wars end and nobody would’ve demanded he be charged or released. The Left wing legal activists are suggesting Hicks be charged as a common criminal when clearly he isn’t. He was fighting for the enemy and if he hadn’t been captured when he was, he could well have ended up being in a position to shoot at and kill Australians or allies. In my reading on the subject I came across this study by the Australian Defence Association that delves into the fact that his detention as a captured combatant and his possible trial on criminal charges are two entirely separate issues.
The complexity of the legal issues surrounding David Hicks confuses even lawyers, particularly ones with little or no background in the relevant international law. Even some academic lawyers with general backgrounds in international law have demonstrated insufficient knowledge of the Laws of Armed Conflict (one of the oldest and most detailed bodies of international law). Recently, for example, the Law Council of Australia lapsed into purely domestic legal thinking and terminology in describing David Hicks as having “languished powerless in custody, principally at Guantanamo Bay, for a period of 30 months before he was even charged with any offence”. Similarly, a recent letter to the Prime-Minister from the Australian Section of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) implied (wrongly) that “indefinite” detention was illegal in all circumstances, mentioned “the Geneva Convention” (rather than show any understanding that there are in fact four Conventions and three Additional Protocols), and did not mention the Laws of Armed Conflict at all. Such statements, apparently premised on the narrow and incorrect supposition that this is only a form of civil criminal matter, are just further variations of the common but simplistic claim that it is merely a matter of someone trying David Hicks or releasing him.
Being tried on terrorism or other war crime charges will not necessarily mean he would be released if found innocent.
Although too often ignored in popular clamour, the correct position in international law is that even if criminal charges against David Hicks were dropped tomorrow this would not necessarily mean his unconditional release from detention as a captured combatant under the Laws of Armed Conflict. The dropping of criminal charges would, however, probably assist the relevant tribunal in determining the likelihood of him resuming belligerent activities and therefore deciding whether his release on captured combatant parole, for example, could be justified under international humanitarian law.
The article from the Australian Defence Association spells it out and is a bit lengthy but if you want to voice an opinion about Hicks then I recommend you read it first. In the meantime I will just accept that most of those clamouring for Hick’s trial and/or release do so based on ideology and in the absence of any impartial knowledge of the laws that govern detention of armed combatants. I’ve been to war and when we captured an enemy soldier we detained him for as long as was deemed necessary to avoid him getting back into the fray. It’s what armies do for God’s sake.

Gulpilil’s machete for ‘cultural use’

Yeah…right!

ABORIGINAL actor David Gulpilil has been found not guilty of carrying an offensive weapon after a judge accepted that the machete he produced during an argument was used for cultural purposes.

He produced the machette during a heated arguement over his drinking whereupon I think the definition of cultural purposes may have gone a little astray.

I have no agenda against David but I think the trial judge Magistrate Tanya Fong Lim could’ve at least spoke severely to him.

“The defendant is an artist and a carver. He used the machete to carve didgeridoos, totem poles and strip stringy bark for paintings,” she told Darwin Magistrates Court.

“There is also evidence he used it to help him build shelters while out bush, like he had done shortly before arriving in Darwin.

“I accept the defendant’s explanation for his possession of the machete.”

Fine, that’s the possession matter out of the way but as far as I know possessing a machette isn’t a crime anyway; (it had better not be because I still have my army issue model in the back shed). But surely producung one during a heated discussion is tantamount to threatening.

It’s not as if he doesn’t have a conflict resolution issue as he has another count of violence due next week.

Last week Gulpilil’s wife took out a domestic violence order against her husband over an incident in Darwin on December 28 last year. That matter has been adjourned until January 17.

I do think David needs some help.

The US back in Somalia

That’s the spirit. Never stop looking for them and when you find them – kill them. The US have attacked an al-Qa’ida hideout in Somalia targeting at least three suspected operatives.

Military sources said the targets in southern Somalia included a senior al-Qa’ida leader in East Africa and an al-Qa’ida operative wanted for his involvement in the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed more than 250 people. There was no confirmation last night that the airstrike had killed the al-Qa’ida targets but sources told The Washington Post that initial reports indicated the attack on the suspected terror training base had been successful.

Some may think an AC-130 Spectre gunship is an overkill but not me. Whatever it takes to eliminate terrorists is fine by me.

The US has also moved the aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower to join two guided missile cruisers USS Bunker Hill and USS Anzio and the amphibious landing ship USS Ashland off the coast of Somalia.

While the US does something about Somalia, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed Tanzania’s Foreign Minister Asha-Rose Migiro to the number two job at the United Nations on Friday, calling her a highly respected leader and outstanding manager who has championed the developing world. The Australian notes she supports Iran’s pursuit of the nuclear weapons and the internet is ablaze with stories of her name not being in the original short list. I have no problems with appointment of woman to any position but this one smacks of a token woman as Ban Ki-moon had previously pledged to appoint a woman as Deputy Secretary-General.

I would rather he had pledged to appoint the best person available.

The UN, of course, is worried that the US have actually done something as it goes against their policies of waiting until hundreds of thousands have been slaughtered before taking over and deploying troops.

Seems like standard business at the UN to me but I guess only time will tell.

Saddam for the ‘Long Drop’ today

According to Al Jazeera Saddam Hussein is due to be executed sometime today. I have stated before I’m against the death sentence mainly due to the possibility of errors in law or questionable guilt however I don’t think any of those factors are relevant in this case. Some will say his execution will make him a martyr but so what? By definition a martyr is no longer able to terrorise his own people and that has to be seen as a plus. I wouldn’t advocate the death sentence as some sort of revenge for his past deeds; rather I see it as a means to ensure he will never again be able to wreak havoc and terror at home and abroad. One down but there is still a lot to go UPDATE:   Saddam was executed at dawn this morning Iraq time (1.00pm EST) How’s this for predictable and meaningless?
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International both complained that Maliki’s government had pressured the judge to return guilty verdicts, and called for the accused to be brought before an international tribunal. “Imposing the death penalty, indefensible in any case, is especially wrong after such unfair proceedings,” said Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch’s international justice programme, after the appeal failed. 
Yeah…right.

The Water debate

How’s this for sheer ignorance?
IT’S like a horror story. Over the centuries, countless millions of people have died from drinking polluted water. The World Health Organisation tells us that 50,000 people per day are still dying from drinking polluted water. Yet, in southeast Queensland, we are being pressured by the state and local governments and the monopoly newspapers to accept recycled sewage being dumped into our dams. Recycled sewage is not safe and I’m telling you that as a fully qualified sewage treatment plant operator. R. Hobbs Carrara, Qld
fully qualified sewage treatment plant operator……mmm. Key words Hobbsie. Southeast Queendsland is first world not third. If it comes out of your tap it’s safe to drink and I think you will find we are talking about water extracted from the sewage system and chemically rendered potable, not the sewage itself. You’d think a fully qualified sewage etc would know the difference – just like a fully qualified Garbologist knows all about paper recycling….they do don’t they? Mind you, the water used by industry for cooling and cleansing most probably doesn’t have to be potable so even if we have to lay a separate pipe system to industrial areas I think in the long term it would impact on our overall consumption. Now that’s a matter for debate as Julie Allen from Camp Hill suggests
It’s all well and good to talk about selective use of recycled water for industry and agriculture (and in some cases that can be a practical option), but does it make sense to dig up cities to build a second pipeline network for recycled water beside a perfectly good existing network just to satisfy the uneducated, the scaremongers and those prone to phobias. Let’s face it – the people telling us that recycled water is safe to drink are the same people who have given us drinking water for the past 100 years. Why should we stop trusting them now?
Why indeed. In note this morning that CSIRO have stated that the current drought is just a part of the normal weather cycles we have on earth and not Global Warming. Makes sense to me and is based on science rather than the new Global Warming Gospel. The drought will end but if nothing else it has forced us to look more closely at water consumption and the lack of storage infrastructure occassioned by state governments actively pursueing the Greenie vote as Ray Duncan from Smithfield Heights, so eloquently points out.
THE only reason that there has been a sharp decline in investment in new dams in Queensland in the past decade is because of the Beattie Labor Government’s pathetic pandering to the greens in exchange for their preferences.
This is particularly evident in Cairns, where every time someone raises the prospect of a new dam, the greens howl long and loud and the proposal is immediately quashed. In the forgotten far north of Queensland, we are using a dam that was commissioned in the late 1970s for a population of 35,000. Now, in 2006, with a population close to 130,000, we have the same dam and permanent water restrictions (in the wettest part of Australia). The Beattie Government’s fear of a green backlash against any new dam proposal is holding the rest of us to ransom.
In one way I hope the drought doesn’t break to soon or the politicians will get away with having done nothing for decades and will not be forced to think big, beyond their next term, and fix the problem for once and for all. It can be done. We are not short of water in Australia. Go for a trip up north in the wet season if you don’t believe me. We are just short of competant water management.

Back From Darkest Asia

Well, that’s what it seems like. Now resident in the Grand President Appartments, Sukhumvit, Bangkok, the appartment is decidedly presidential after the last eight days in Cambodia. Welcomed also is the front page of the Bangkok Post announcing “Ruthless Aust win back Ashes” All I need to make it a great day is a couple of Poms at the bar tonight

Cambodia – Day One.

We flew out of Bangkok just over a week ago with Bangkok air and had a very good short flight to Phnom Penh. Picked up at the airport by our Khmer contact we drove to Kampot in a Mercedes Van thus heralding my reinsertion into Asian culture. It was a hot insertion as well as the traffic can be best described as chaos in motion. Mitsibishi vans with 15 people inside, three 150cc Honda bikes on the roof and three other people hanging onto them. We watched amazed as one guy transfers from inside the van to the cooler upstairs seats (read roof) and we then pull out to pass a truck to be confronted by 10 Hondas coming straight at us. Everyone merges…against all apparent odds (to a western eye) and we get back into the comparative safety zone of the right hand lane. If the van had seat belts they were not apparent which would’ve gone some way to calm my fears as we risked head-on crashes at a frequency of at least 20-25 per kilometer.

We book into the Sen Monorom Guest House and get used to life at a different pace. The French have a lot to answer for in South East Asia but surely the legacy of their plumbing has to top the list. A bidet is the local answer to hygiene and the bathrooms are unusual to say the least. 2.5 metres square; a toilet in one corner, a hand basin in another, the shower on the wall with intermittant hot water; all with a drain hole on the floor in the furtherest corner from the shower head. This guarantees the floor and your clothes are always wet unless you strip before entering.

The Guest House looks good from outside;

but on closer inspection the painters could’ve used a tape measure;

and maybe R&M could be given a higher priority.

Just saying.

Notwithstanding all the above the staff were very friendly and helpfull and the rate was only $20.00US per day. We went down town and had lunch at a local food/drink bar. Food is good and very cheap while Beerlau costs less than 1.00 a glass and became the preffered drink for the group.

We are in town, fed and watered and ready to start. Through the afternoon we rest up in preparation for meeting the Khmer and expat players at a BBQ at a locals riverside house. We are promised a cow on a spit, plenty of local refreshments and transport to the event on a traditional Khmer long boat.

More tomorrow. I can hear some Poms in the bar and I need to chat to them. I might start the conversation by saying straight face..“We’ve been bush in Cambodia for a week…do you know how the last test went?”

On Leave

Today I commence a journey to Kampot in Cambodia with a view to help bed in a programme that will eventually see a small local village become self sufficient. More on the project after I spend some time on-site. I am looking forward to this weekend in old Bangkok where I spent time during the Vietnam war. Should be fun but not too much fun if you get my drift.

Monday we fly on to Pnom Penh and then to Kampot. I will hopefully be able to blog from there with my take on Cambodia with pics and details of the project. In the new year I will set up a website to publicise and help gain support for the project. Those old South East Asian hands who spent their younger days blowing this part of the world to pieces may consider putting up their hands to help rebuild a small part of a nation shattered by communism. There is more than one way to fight the bastards even if it is remedial rather than preemptive.

Must go…plane to catch.

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