Latest Posts

Activists ‘may put lives at risk’

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I don’t have much time for whaling but I have a whole lot less time for Greenpeace as in a target of Greanpeace is a friend of mine. The actions of the US anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd could easily sink the Japanese factory ship Nisshin Maru in the freezing waters of the Southern Ocean and put the lives of the crew at risk, the head of Australia’s master mariners association warned yesterday.
Captain John Carroll, the federal master of the Company of Master Mariners of Australia, said Sea Shepherd’s stated aim of dragging a hawser under the Japanese ship to disable its propellers could rip the drive shafts from the ship and leave a gaping hole under its waterline.“There is always a weak point built into a ship’s drive shafts for safety reasons and you can actually pull the propeller shaft, or shafts, right off,” Captain Carroll said. “If that happened, it is probable the ship would sink.”
Surely endangering lives and ships at sea is a crime in someones books…Australia’s maybe? UPDATE: Yobbo has a good piece on whom rammed who
Politics

Hungry accused go on hunger strike

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TEN men accused of being part of a terrorist organisation have gone on a hunger strike over prayer time in prison.
The men, who began the strike on Monday, want to be able to pray together on Friday afternoons and on special religious occasions. They have also complained they had not been getting enough food.
So a hunger strike fixes that? Win-win for all. Think how much money we will save on food.
War on Terror

You can leave your hat on

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Cairo: An Egyptian cleric’s controversial fatwa claiming that nudity during sexual intercourse invalidates a marriage has uncovered a rift among Islamic scholars.
According to the religious edict issued by Rashad Hassan Khalil, a former dean of Al-Azhar University’s faculty of Sharia, “being completely naked during the act of coitus annuls the marriage”.
But wait, all is not lost for the Egyptian Lothario.
Al-Azhar’s fatwa committee chairman Abdullah Megawar argued that married couples could see each other naked but should not look at each other’s genitalia and suggested they cover up with a blanket during sex.
Raises the old arguement I had on this site as to whether the Muslims are stuck in the 7th century or the 12th. Via reader HRT
War on Terror

Bush bugging beatup

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Mark Steyn hits the nail on the head.
….unmoored from reality, wafting happily into fantasy land safe in the hermetically sealed Democrat-media bubble, Sen. Barbara Boxer and her colleagues are apparently considering impeaching the president for eavesdropping on al Qaida calls made to U.S. phone numbers.
 It’s the same as taking Churchill or Roosevelt to court over their complicity in breaking Enigma and the Japanese codes and then conducting the mortal sin of listening in to the enemies communications. More from Steyn.
Consider Iyman Faris, a naturalized American citizen also known as Mohammad Rauf and nailed by U.S. intelligence through the interception of foreign-U.S. communications. He was convicted in 2003 for doing the legwork on an al Qaida scheme to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge Do you want Iyman Faris in jail? Or do you think he should have the run of the planet until he’s actually destroyed the bridge and killed hundreds of people? Say, the Golden Gate Bridge just as you’re driving across after voting for Barbara Boxer and congratulating yourself on your moral superiority.
 If you do want him, and others like him off the streets then you need to accept that one of the quickest avenues of doing so is communications interception. You can’t have it both ways. I recommend you read the full article. The link is in the RH bar
US Politics, War on Terror

Extra SAS and ‘Chooks’ sent to fight the Taliban

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Another SASR Squadron off to join the fray in Afghanistan. AUSTRALIA will boost its military presence in Afghanistan to more than 500 troops to counter an increase in violence from a resurgent Taliban. Two Chinook helicopters and 110 special forces soldiers will be deployed to the troubled country, seen as a front line in the war against terror. The Chinooks, commonly called ‘Chooks’ have had a chequered history in Australa with crashes and 12 squadron disbanding and ‘rebanding’ over the 33 years they have been in the ADF inventory. In May 1989, the Defence Minister, Kim Beazley announced the withdrawal of the Tactical Transport Group Chinook fleet on cost grounds, and that Army Black Hawks would perform the essential roles of the Chinook. This is a bit like saying a Land Rover can do the job of a Mac truck and the fact that this is a false hope didn’t take long to become apparent, even to the ALP. True, the Chinook is most probably the most expensive rotary wing aircraft to maintain in any countries inventory but it is also almost indispensable to the countries infrastructure. Its heavy lift capacity makes it ideal for civilian applications as well as defence deployment. Besides ADF deployments, other tasks for the Chinooks have been lifting Wessex helicopters for the RAN, and wrecks of wartime Boston bombers from the jungles in Papua New Guinea. Also lifted was an extremely large statue of Australian aviation pioneer Sir Lawrence Hargrave onto Mt Keira at Wollongong, typical of many tasks undertaken for the civil community. The first time I flew in one was in Vietnam. The US Chook picked up us 20 odd soldiers then flew over and picked up a bulldozer. I was sitting over the hatch that had a round beam from which hung the dozer. It looked all too lightweight to me but off we flew with the dozer oscilating and me hyperventilating. Great piece of kit and it’s good to see it is supporting the new soldiers as they battle the new terrorists. UPDATE: Too date, 61% of Age readers who have participated in a poll on sending troops to Afghanistan have voted for the continuation of the Taliban regime with all it’s brutality. Age Poll It could only happen at the Age.
Defence, War on Terror

Cyclone Clare weakens

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TROPICAL Cyclone Clare roared towards Western Australia’s Pilbara coast last night, forcing families into evacuation shelters as emergency workers prepared for a dangerous storm surge and destructive winds. The cyclone on the map defines neatly the area where I went sailing a few years ago. Click here for the almost finished article on that trip. Sea and air ports, roads and shops were closed and more than 150,000 barrels of daily oil production shut down as the category-three cyclone headed towards the northwest coast.
Despite the red alert, about 10 young men could not resist the chance to surf a rare swell in the famously flat waters of Dampier Harbour. The group soon realised the conditions were too dangerous and headed to shore, but two stragglers got into difficulty and had to be rescued by police. Locals raised the alarm as the pair struggled to reach the safety of Sam’s Island, about 600m off the shore.
 An onlooker, obviously the master of understatement, comments;
“It was traumatic for everyone watching them, that’s for sure,” said an onlooker who alerted police. “The police couldn’t believe anyone would be out there. They had to act really quickly because all their rescue stuff, including their boat, was locked down for the cyclone.”
I’m sure the Police language would have been more colourful. The Storm Surge effect is caused by cyclones occuring at high tide. This phenomena is exacerbated by the fact that the tidal range in the area is in the magnitude of 12 metres. Good luck guys and could you have the place cleaned up by the time I visit in May this year. Thanks. UPDATE: Clare has been downgraded from a category three to a category one storm as it heads for the state’s Gascoyne region.
General Musings

Old news but good idea

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The ubiquitous RPG 7 may be reaching its use-by-date. THE British Army’s next class of armoured vehicles will be protected by a “force-field” of electrified armour that will vaporise rocket-propelled grenades. Britain’s Ministry of Defence has signalled that the electric armour, invented at the ministry’s scientific research centre, will transform armoured warfare, enabling vehicles to be more lightly protected and more easily moved around the world. Army News has the story as well as the Australian
The British electric armour is made up of several layers, the first of which is an earthed bullet-proof outer skin. The second skin is live, although insulated, and has several thousand volts of electricity flowing through it, powered by the vehicle’s battery. The third skin is the normal vehicle hull. When an RPG7 grenade hits a tank with standard armour, its conical warhead fires a jet of hot copper into the target at about 1600km/h. This can penetrate more than 30cm of conventional solid steel armour. On the electric armour, the grenade penetrates the insulation on the live second skin, creating a sudden surge in electricity that vaporises the copper stream in the same way that a surge burns out a fuse wire. The effect is to leave the inner hull intact and the crew safe, with the vehicle capable of taking repeated hits.
It’s not exactly current news though, I note UK DSTL released this article in July 2002.
Defence

A bad week to be a Queenslander

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A Jellyfish sting kills a girl at Bamaga, in far north Queensland. The Box JellyFish (Chironex Fleckeri) aka Fire Medusa or Indringa is often fatal and is present in tropical waters during the wet season. When I was in Townsville my Company Sergeant Major and his wife were attacked by a Box Jelly fish. She died and he was badly scarred for life. A 21 year old woman was killed by a shark at Amity Point, just over the bay from where I live. NORTH Stradbroke Island tourism operators have called for a shark-proof swimming enclosure to be built off Amity Point where a young woman was fatally mauled by up to three bull sharks at the weekend. Sarah Kate Whiley, 21, from McDowall on Brisbane’s northside, was attacked while swimming in waist-high water about 15m off the beach late on Saturday afternoon. The island’s beaches were closed to swimmers yesterday but were expected to reopen today. Redland Shire Mayor Don Seccombe said council would consider installing a shark-proof fence when councillors returned from holidays. In the meantime warning signs would be erected. Local fishermen said they were not surprised a pack of bull sharks was believed to be responsible. A terrible business all round and a stark reminder of natures savagery.
General Musings

Gee, Saddam was involved in training terrorists after all

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THE FORMER IRAQI REGIME OF Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. The existence and character of these documents has been confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD by eleven U.S. government officials. As Michelle Malkin says; This is important news. It ought to be on the front pages. It won’t be. So spread the word.
War on Terror

Mad Mayor

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THE mayor of Waverley, Mora Main, has a vision of a perfect world and it’s practically car-free.
Residents in Sydney’s east who needed to get somewhere would borrow keys to “share cars” – preferably electric ones – from the council carpark and use them to, say, do some grocery shopping.
 You might remember Mora Main as the idiot who decided not to fly the Australian flag at Bondi.
The rest of the time, they could just walk serenely from place to place (lugging the children, car seats, sand buckets, mobile phones, handbags and the shopping) or glide along on the light rail (that doesn’t yet exist).
 Besides cars, Ms Main would also like to see fewer air-conditioners (“because we get beautiful seabreezes and it is only 40 degrees once in a blue moon”), and fewer backyard swimming pools (because the sound of children splashing can disturb creative types trying to work from home). In the course of promoting these ideas, Ms Main – who is 50 years old, never married, has no children and whose politics are Green – has been accused of being many things, among them a batty Leftie, an autocrat determined to tell others how to live, while being out of touch with the lives of “ordinary people”. Could someone explain to me why people vote these fruitcakes into office. Surely the Ms Mains of the world can’t hide all their stupidity during the elections. Poor fellow, my country indeed.
Politics
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