Latest Posts

Lynndie is off to the slammer

Posted on by
US soldier Lynndie England participated in humiliating prisoners at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison because she enjoyed it and had a sick sense of humour, a military prosecutor said today.
England’s lawyers have said she took part in the humiliation because of an overly compliant personality but Captain Graveline responded to that defence by showing a poster of her pointing derisively at an inmate’s genitals. “What soldier wouldn’t know that that’s illegal?” he said.
This one. Tacky, stupid, crass, brainless, dumb, foolish, half-witted, idiotic, ill-advised, imbecilic, inane, indiscreet, insensate, unintelligent, unthinking or witless…yes, but illegal?
England, who faces up to 11 years in prison if convicted on all seven counts, was also shown in posters holding a naked prisoner on a leash. In previous statements, she had said the poses were a joke.
11 years for a victimless joke. Lynndie is now the victim.
War on Terror

Major Mori damages Jaw

Posted on by
Major Mori has discovered a new defence for Hicks. He’s really a Pom.
“He told me he’d never felt very partisan about the Ashes and wouldn’t mind much if England took the series because his mum had never claimed Aussie nationality and still carried a UK passport,” Major Mori told The Observer.
Mori realizes this fact could delay justice further and exclaims;
“My jaw hit the floor. I asked him: ‘Do you realise that may mean you’re legally a Brit?’ We both knew that the implications of that could be stunning.”
I’m not sure that nationality will have much bearing on his defence but I’m happy to be stunned as well, so long as Hicks does his time in Britain and never darkens our door again. It’s a win-win for Aussie and the Poms should expect some penalty for having the temerity to take the ashes off us.
War on Terror

This day in Military History

Posted on by
On this day, 20 September, in 1944, Academy award winning Australian cameraman Damien Parer was killed while filming American troops on Peleliu in the Pacific. Parer’s documentary Front line Kokoda won an Oscar for best documentary in 1943. Having filmed Australians in action during the early years of the war, Parer accepted a job with the American film company Paramount to film American’s in action in the Pacific. Damien Parer The man The Photo and the image The Australian War Memorial has a piece on Damien here and Neil McDonald has written a biography of Damien, reviewed here. Murray Sayle, a war correspondence of some note himself, has a lengthy piece in a 2004 edition of Quadrant. It is worth the read, not just for Sayle’s perspective on Parer, but for his perspective on MacArthur and Blamey. He is not complimentary and in my opinion, neither should he be. I would however question some of his interpretations of Japanese capabilities. Worth the time for those with an interest in our history. Damien Parer did a lot to ensure the Australian people knew exactly what it was their military forces were confronting in North Australia and the Pacific in the dark days of 1942.
Defence

Simon Wiesenthal dies

Posted on by

HOLOCAUST survivor Simon Wiesenthal, an untiring campaigner who helped track down hundreds of Nazi war criminals, has died in Vienna aged 96, his pressure group has announced.

Mr Wiesenthal was the world’s most intrepid hunter of Nazi war criminals, bringing more than a thousand to trial in a global campaign to ensure no one forgot the horror of Adolf Hitler’s treatment of the Jews.

I always agreed with his premise… there is no statute of limitations on mass murder and he never forgot or forgave the obscenity that was the Holocuast.

He did his best.

For those interested in world matters you will find more details about Simon Wiesenthal at the Simon Wiesenthal Center

Uncategorized

Howard recognised as Statesman

Posted on by
And the left go ballistic. Margo and her pixies are beside themselves with this news and have penned a letter to the Appeal of Conscience organization in New York
The Honorable John Howard will receive the World Statesman Award for his “inspiring leadership that has made Australia a beacon of democracy, religious freedom and human rights and for his courageous stand against international terrorism,” Rabbi Schneier said. Serving as Australian Prime Minister since 1996, Howard most recently announced Australia’s partnership in the Asia-Pacific Partnership On Clean Development and Climate, an enterprise devoted to addressing the challenges of climate change, energy security and air pollution in a way that strives to encourage economic development and reduce poverty in developing nations.
It’s not a big deal to me and most probably isn’t to Howard either but it is worth the effort and time involved just to read the left’s vitriol. Although, on reflection, the way Howard upsets the left should make him a shoe-in for the award.
Past recipients of the World Statesman Award include Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson, President of the Government of Spain José Maria Aznar, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, Republic of Korea President Kim Dae-jung, King Juan Carlos I of Spain, Presidents Cardoso, Gorbachev, Havel, and von Weizsaeker, Chancellor Schroeder, as well as Prime Ministers Prodi and Thatcher.
A small quote from the letter;
Mr Howard’s anti-terrorism laws have targeted Australian Muslims. These laws give extraordinary powers which are intrusive and demonise the Muslim community.
I doubt if Rabbi Arthur Schneier, founder and president, would have bothered reading past this accusation.
Politics

The Latham Debacle just keeps on giving

Posted on by
MARK Latham’s new life as a stay-at-home dad is being funded by a generous $66,000-a-year pension scheme that he slashed for the next generation of MPs.
But yesterday on 2UE radio in Sydney, the former Labor leader said if he had become a merchant banker he would be earning $300,000 a year.
Who on earth would pay Latham anything after his dummy spit? On reflection though, the country and the ALP would have been a lot better off if Latham had picked merchant banking as his career. Any commercial enterprise would have picked Latham as useless quicker than the time it takes to fracture his fragile ego with the result that he would never have occupied a responsible position in Merchant Banking or in politics. A definite win-win situation Lathams verdict: The system is sick Australia’s verdict: Latham is sick. Over at Silent Running a Kiwi has a message for Latham The post starts with this plain spoken message;
In the unlikely even I need some asshole comment about my countries apparently enviable pro-terrorist position we have plenty of home grown f**kwits already thanks.
Latham still has plenty of supporters though, and one of them comments on Anthony Lowenstein’s blog
I want to be able to vote for a party that is public in it’s mistrust of this American administration. I want candidates who assert the primacy of Australian sovereignty in matters of war, fo-po, trade, media law, etc. I want a party that will guarantee that ID won’t end up in our schools on their watch; that there will never be computer screen voting in this country; that someone like Scott Parkin would not have even been questioned by their government; that dares to call Israel on it’s sins.
I note he says …mistrust in this American administration to cover himself for the unlikely event that a left leaning Democrat gets to the White House. Glen just wants an anti-Bush/US party. You’re dead right Glen…don’t hold your breath. Australians think deeper than US evil…Bush dumb. I trust by now the Libs have all his most outlandish quotes databased on their laptops for quick reference in the House at question time. It’s going to be fun.
General Musings
1 … 161 162 163 164 165 … 228