Latest Posts

Guantonamo good news

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The US continue to interrogate inmates in their fight against terrorism and discover a link to the London bombings. While human rights lawyers and activists argue for their release the US gains good intelligence that helps prevent repeats of WTC, London and Bali.
“We have passed the information they have provided about the London bombings to the British authorities. I believe this information has helped to prevent further attacks in the UK.” US officials said the ongoing interrogation of the detainees continued to provide valuable information about al-Qa’ida’s international network. Apart from preventing attacks in London, recent intelligence has led to active al-Qa’ida cells being broken up in Italy and Germany in the past year. In recent weeks, some of the captured al-Qa’ida fighters, who were in charge of Osama bin Laden’s training camps in Afghanistan, have begun co-operating with US officials and revealing details of the terrorist network they helped set up before the war in Afghanistan in 2001.
Which is one of the reasons why, in a war, enemy PWs are held until ceasation of hostilities.
War on Terror

Bonfire of the inanities

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John Burtis in the Canadian Free Press puts the ‘Dick Cheney shooting a lawyer mate’ press frenzy in perspective.
In their Herculean efforts to lend further “gravitas” to the beleaguered story, the media trundled out grizzled hunting experts, college-trained weather men and women, experts on color recognition and the reasons for the use of international orange on hunting outfits, the problems to be encountered from lead poisoning, ornithologists and the year of the expected Texas quail extinction, medical experts and the grave damage to be expected from the horrors of bird shot, cardiologists, Neil Young and the needles and the damage done, schematic diagrams of shooting victims, savvy attorneys to discourse on the legal ramifications of the expected charges for attempted murder and great bodily harm, pettifoggers to discuss the upcoming civil penalties, constitutional scholars to describe this latest nail in the proverbial coffin of impeachment, pundits to describe in glib detail the replacement of Dick Cheney for this strategic gaffe of immense proportions and experts in finer points of haberdashery to explain the meaning of the pink tie – the full list may never be fully tabulated because of its absolutely daunting size and the fact that it was pounded out in 24 news cycles for nearly a week.
And finishes with this;
And on the world front, as the hunting accident is still being rehashed for inconsistencies, investigated for further nefarious activities and the possible consumption of, gasp, a beer in the woods, the cartoon wars go on, Iran continues its nuclear build up, North Korea remains a menace, Hamas continues its activities to destroy Israel, we have helicopters down off the African coast, the UN remains a rotten borough, Islamist terrorists are still killing people in Iraq and the Philippines and the beat goes on.
But at home the US press burns in its own bonfire of inanities and it won’t step out of the fireplace or look outside its ridiculously small box because there was a hunting accident and somebody’s got to pay.
The story rates with SBS running their 433rd episode of Abu Ghraib prison saga. via LGF
Politics

Brahman bully

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I am involved with a boys college in Brisbane that offer a Cattle Club for extra carricula activities for country and city borders and day boys. The club has an arrangement with ‘Chudley’ a red Brahman cattle stud just north of Gympie, Queensland. I am a member of the club as an adult volunteer and mentor and yes; I do have a blue card. Coming from the land myself I have some understanding of cattle and can generally make myself useful.

This “Showing” cattle is no small deal. We are talking about boys as young as thirteen and cattle as big as 800 kilos. To be able to groom, lead, control and show cattle takes a lot of knowledge and a lot more courage.

This weekend we concentrated on introducing the novice boys and young cattle to each other. With both parties nervous and in unfamiliar circumstances there was ample opportunity for things to go wrong…and they did.

I was standing in the cattle pens trying to soothe a young bull and at about the time when I thought we had developed a meaningful relationship two young calves with small boys in tow skidded past, just behind the flanks of my new friend.

Cattle are lowing, boys are yelling and instructors coaxing. “One Eye’ the cattle dog is trying to direct 20 head in four pens and a yard all at once with the head stockman yelling ‘get in behind, you bitch” and I’m left with no where to go as I’m penned in with a lot of young and not-so young Brahmans.

I turn back from the mele to see the young bull, the same guy I had a meaningful relationship with only minutes ealier, rising up on his hind quarters with evil in his eye.

For a quadraped weighing about 4-500 kilos he showed amazing speed, dexterity and determination and accurately head butted me on the left side of my face. I was stunned and showered with about a litre of saliva and whatever in my hair, on my face and shirt. My reading glasses went flying and landed under the hooves of three other young excited Brahmans giving rise to my first note of alarm. The glasses were only a month old as my previous pair had been eaten by my young black Labradour pup and stirred on by visions of having to spend another $400.00 plus I leapt to save them.

Glasses saved, my superannuant budget secure and my hat back on my head in a matter of seconds I look to my physical needs in response to everyone panicking about how hard I might have been hit. Everone but me had seen that whereas the bull headbutted me, what he was trying to do was rake down my chest, and ……mmmm, lower, with his front hooves.

A sore neck and slight headache was a small price to pay for not controlling my space so the day went on. That night we had a country band in residence and we sang along with Slim Dusty, Johnny Cash and others untill almost midnight. The wife of the guitarist/singer had her own home brewed bourbon and this, along with some 4X helped to relax my stiff body.

Of course the bourbon and beer produced a hangover that pretty well replicates any symptons of concussion so it wasn’t until today that I can say the only thing hurt was my dignity.

The boys have a “bush Poets” society at school and during the evening one young lad recited “Turbulance” If you haven’t heard it or read it, go read it now. Light hearted and very ‘Outback’ ish it’s a story of a Rodeo rough rider handling the turbulence in a aircraft.

The young bull is now living in a fools paradise as he thinks he and I have battled and he won but the last thing I saw before he hit me was his yellow NLIS tag number (2156). I now have a trace in place on this number and the day he is converted to beef, I’m going to the town where it happened and shout myself a bloody big Brahman steak.

Travel

AWB Fiasco IV

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Let’s sumarise the debate. Beasely, ‘Tricky’ Rudd and their co-travellers have raised the Cole enquiry to international prominence by politicising the process in their mindless pursuit of a government. Eager for a Ministerial scalp they have pre-empted the enquiry results and given succour to our enemies. The US wheat board, also hoping for a scalp for commercial reasons, are ecstatic. It gave them ammo to go to Iraq and put pressure on tthe Iraqis to buy US wheat and not Australian. With a good percentage of the ALP hating the US, I wonder whether the irony of their aiding and abetting the US Wheat Baord will come to their notice. Probably not. The big losers in this debate are the Australian Wheat farmers and by extension, the Australian economy. Winners include the US but not the ALP. Yes…I know, Newspoll gleefully records a loss of support for the government in their latest guestimate but don’t think for a moment that it’s a long term thing. The ALP are making mileage as they defend the high moral ground but that ground is historically indefensible as Corporations and businesses of all scales realize that to trade in certain parts of the world one needs to factor in ‘fees’. Do you think it only started with the advent of the Howard’s government? Of course not, it’s been the norm for commercial enterprises to pay ‘fees’ for decades. Certainly throughout the Hawke-Keating years but I can’t, for the life of me, recall anyone demanding those two erudite ALP leaders micro-manage private enterprise contacts. The ‘crime’ was victimless. Iraqis got fed….Aussie wheat farmers got paid. On the other hand, the ALP’s hysterical pursuit of Ministerial scalps is full of victims and they are all Australians. Farmers and AWB staff to name two groups. No winners here…not good.
Politics

Jews don’t like him and neither do I

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ILLUSTRATOR Michael Leunig has been accused of playing the martyr in expressing outrage over his work being included in a distasteful Iranian cartoon competition because the images were anti-Semitic.
Leunig, whose cartoons appear in the Fairfax newspapers, was the subject of a bizarre hoax when someone fraudulently entered one of his works in an Iranian newspaper competition for the world’s most offensive Holocaust cartoons.
For more details see Tim Blairs expose
The entry was initially taken seriously and was picked up around the world by media including Australian Associated Press, The Sydney Morning Herald, Le Monde and Islamonline. But the cartoon was withdrawn from Hamshahri’s website after Leunig demanded it be removed.
The entry was taken seriously because it is believable. Leunig is anti-Semetic and anti-everything else I stand for and there is a fair chance his cartoon could’ve picked up a prize in the Iranian news competition for the most offensive cartoon that redicules the West or the Jews In the Age Leunig seeks sympathy from the Australia public, long used to his offensive cartoons with the header;
Amid the pain, God puts his hand on my shoulder.
But not on everybodies shoulder apparently;
Elsewhere in the world, families stricken with anger and sadness grieve for loved ones killed in the madness of war. Homes lie in rubble.
Wars started, I might add, by those who Leunig supports with his cartoons What an offensive tosser
War on Terror

Just when you thought it was safe to go in the water again…it is.

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PETER Benchley, author of the bestseller Jaws that was the basis for the blockbuster movie that terrified beachgoers and kept many out of the water for years, died at his home at age 65, his family said overnight.but I empathise with the Benchly family but one of my daughters is still traumatised by the movie Jaws and still views the sea as a source of terror so I’m glad the chance of another Jaws movie has deminished by his demise.
General Musings

Military kit

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In todays Australian Michael McKinnon and Cameron Stewart co edit a piece lambasting the government on the equipment issued to soldiers and kicks off with this startling statement.
BLOOD-filled boots and sodden jackets infested with maggots force thousands of Australian soldiers a year to buy their own military equipment.
What can they mean…..blood…..maggots? The article actually turns into a unpaid advertisement for Crossfire Australia P/L who, in their catalogue have a boot grandly named the Peace Keeper ECW Boot marketed with the following a boast

CROSSFIRE® has been involved with duty boots of one kind or another for decades. We’ve provided tens of thousands of pairs to military, fire fighters, police, ambos etc.

Haven’t heard a lot of complaints yet, except sometimes the age old question: “Why doesn’t the ……… give us boots this good?”
One reason, they cost $355.00 a pair. With about 70,000 reserve and regular troops that translates at near $250m just to shod the troops.
Speaking from a military show in Las Vegas, Crossfire manager Peter Marshall said his company was a big contractor to the Defence Department, with “substantial sales directly to units and to individual soldiers”. “I have spoken to thousands of soldiers who all say they cannot operate at full efficiency because of poor equipment. This failure places their lives at risk,” he said.
The quote “substantial sales directly to units and to individual soldiers” clearly outlines Crossfire’s agenda….sell more gear…force the government to upgrade indidual equipment. Don’t listen to them anymore but do listen to the soldiers. Blood and maggots appears a bit extreme to me but the fact that not all soldiers are happy with their equipment is as old as soldiering. It’s a basic fact that a percentage of professional soldiers will always call to queston government issued kit and will look elsewhere for satisfaction. The quantification of this dissatisfaction is the telling point. The Crossfire manager quotes “thousands of soldiers” complaining about poor equipment but I can smell a bit of sales talk in the air. I complained about the equipment I was issued. My issue pack for Vietnam came in one size fits all and was designed to carry three days rations. I would talk fondly of getting hold of the bastard who thought three days capacity was sufficient for an Infantry pack and arrange for him to carry, for the rest of his life, the other seven days I had to carry in the bloody thing. I never did a three day patrol between resupply but did lots of seven and once, 14 days, living (sparingly) off the contents of the pack. The first Australian troops in Vietnam (1RAR) were shod with Boots, AB with ‘D^D 1945’ often stamped on the leather. After 20 years in storage and three months in monsoonal weather the stitching gave way and black insulating tape and signal cabling held them together until Defence designed, made and issued the Boots, GP. Soldiers called our “Smocks, Tropical”, “Smocks, Physcological” because they didn’t keep the rain out and when the government issued us with new tropical jungle green uniforms they forgot to tell us not to iron them as the nylon thread using in sewing them together melted and the sleeve fell off on day one…the pockets fell off on day two…the collar day three…..We were issued flack jackets but only used them to sit on and protect our masculinity when forced to travel by soft skinned vehicles and the helmet affected our hearing when jungle vegetation scraped along the surface so we used them for washing back at base. I could go on but you must have got my drift by now. It happens. Yeah, I know, different generation, different expectations, but by and large the game doesn’t change and so long as it is a minority of soldiers complaining then the more things change the more they stay the same. In moments of frustration we reminded ourselves that our equipment, incuding our rifle, was made by the lowest bidder. Besides which, if you’re soldiering in close proximity to US forces arrange for them to teach you how to play poker and buy their gear with your winnings. We did…worked a treat. And remember…cynicism helps put it all in perspecive.
Defence

‘Stinging’ Nettle

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THE rosaries-ovaries T-shirt worn by an Australian Greens senator was deeply offensive to Catholics, Prime Minister John Howard said today. An understatement, Mr Howard. The Greens Senator is deeply offensive herself. So crass and yet claims the high moral ground in the debate.
Australian Greens Senator Kerry Nettle wore the “keep your rosaries off my ovaries” T-shirt earlier this week as the Senate started its emotion charged debate over who should control the abortion drug RU486. The T-shirt was sponsored by the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA).
I’m a self confessed coward in relation to the abortion debate. I say nothing…with a catholic wife, a Mother, three sisters, three daughters, what appears at times to be a hundred switched on modern nieces (all Catholic) and no religion myself to speak of I figure it’s a woman’s issue. All that of course doesn’t stop me picking on my favourite sub-species – the Greens. The woman is offensive, not just her shirt. The PM continues;
“The Greens Party can practically sneer at Catholic devotional practice and think it’s funny and to see some journalists standing around grinning as if the whole thing’s a joke,” he said. “And it’s the kind of silly undergraduate contribution to this debate which is regrettable but that’s democracy.”
Whereas I’m not heavy into religion, I’m very much into people having the right to practice their beliefs and pay homage to their Gods without redicule. Nettle and her kind; the downside to democracy. UPDATE: ‘Stinging’ Nettle says she’s sorry;
AUSTRALIAN Greens senator Kerry Nettle says she is sorry if her rosaries-ovaries T-shirt offended anyone, but pledged to wear it again.
Which really means she isn’t sorry; she just mouthed some words to get more media coverage and will wear it again when it suits her.
Politics

Butane could be the villian

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Butane gas and aircraft do not mix. I can recall doing a Unit Emplaning Officers’ course whilst in-service and being told the story of a bic lighter sitting on the dash of a Hercules long enough to heat up, explode and cause sufficient damage to bring down the aircraft. I also remember being in a Herc one day when the Loadie discovered a butane bottle in someone’s kit. With drama worthy of a career in Hollwood he raised the rear gate and threw the offending item out at 30,000 feet. Thinking about that now, I wonder where it landed? Hope we were over desert or somewhere similar……still. Whatever, this article from the SMH raises the issue again. Butane could be the villian with the Sea King choper crash in Nias, Indonesia last year.
TEN canisters of highly flammable liquid butane gas found in the wreckage of a Sea King helicopter that crashed on the Indonesian island of Nias last year could have been taken on board by an aid worker, an inquiry into the accident has heard.
Counsel assisting the inquiry, Lieutenant Stephen Harper and Lieutenant Matthew Vesper, yesterday began investigating the role of an Australian aid worker, Frank Tyler, who was picked up on Nias with his interpreter on the morning of the accident. Mr Tyler wanted the Sea King’s assistance to get to Teluk Dalam, where more than 100 casualties had been reported. A number of boxes which Mr Tyler wanted transported were also loaded onto the Sea King. But instead of flying direct to Teluk Dalam, the helicopter flew back to the Kanimbla.
There the boxes were unloaded and stored in a hangar on the ship for 2½ hours before being placed back on the Sea King later that day for the flight to Teluk Dalam. It was on that flight that the crash occurred. In between, there had been a crew change on the Sea King, known as Shark 02.
Who signed off on the load list for the second flight, I wonder? Not good. UPDATE: Just to clarify my position; I’m not suggesting the butane had anything to do with the crash but could well have caused loss of life subsequent to the impact and resultant fuel ignition.
Defence

AWB Fiasco III

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Greg Sheridan in the Australian.
I THINK it’s time we all took a cold shower on AWB (formerly the Australian Wheat Board) and its participation in the Iraq oil-for-food scandal. According to the Volcker inquiry, about 2253 companies from 66 countries were involved in paying kickbacks to the Saddam Hussein regime as part of their trade under oil-for-food.
My thoughts exactly. If you do business in this part of the world you pay bakshees. If you don’t pay you don’t sell. Would ‘Tricky’ Rudd or Beasley have compensated the thousands of Australian wheat growers for loss of sales if the crop stayed in the bins? No way. Australians see that it’s all about the ALP trying to score a strike against the government; that the government most probably didn’t know about the details of the case and that after all, the AWB did what it was chartered to do – sell the wheat crop in extremely difficult circumstances. As well as getting money to the wheat growers for their efforts they most probably saved lives in Iraq. Kids had food for a change. I guess that in the total absence of any coherent policies the ALP can not hope to win power; they can only hope to bring the government down by a technicality.
The broader question of corruption is very slippery. When people are accused of corruption, this normally means acting dishonestly, stealing money for themselves. Many people connected to the UN, such as Kofi Annan’s son Koji, made a lot of money personally through oil-for-food. No one is alleging that folks at AWB were improperly pocketing money themselves.
It’s not about the AWB, they are just the catalyst for the ALP to attack. There will be any amount of Australian companys who will have paid ‘fees’ to get goods over the wharves in Indonesia, through customs in some South African excuse for a country or even into a European market. It just happens and the only difference is the actual word used to describe the ‘fees’. In fact, if any company tells you they don’t pay ‘fees’ to get goods into Indonesia I would say they are telling porkies. The ABC, SBS and ALP should get over it and start acting as a constructive opposition. There are plenty of bills to debate and the AWB will not cost Howard any votes.
General Musings, US Politics
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