Latest Posts

Feeling unloved and unread –

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Feeling unloved and unread – my infantry ego shattered – no-one was leaving any comments. Then I clicked on ‘comments’ and saw the message – the ‘free’ squawkbox software was only designed to sucker me in and once dependant on comments, like any junkie, I will pay willingly. I have done so and all will be back to normal in a day or two. For those kind souls who will feel a need to tell me how to have ‘comments’ for nothing please wait till monday so I can start the week in a bad way.
General Musings

GG Jefferys attacked

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In today’s Australian, Michael Costello, does his best to make the Governor-General look bad but only succeeds in bringing his own motives into question. The piece basically says General Jefferys is conservative and thus he must be taken to task. During his time as governor of Western Australia, as The Australian’s Matt Price pointed out, Jeffreys repeatedly voiced conservative views on single-parent families, the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras and de facto relationships. He also spoke of assimilation for Aborigines. Remarkably, he was often to the Right of the conservative Court government. Repeatedly…….remarkably…… like the majority of Australians. The case against General Jefferys so far is; He disagrees with left wing views. He regularly convened meetings of informal think-tanks, and after he left he became chairman of a think-tank called Future Directions International. As Governor-General-designate he felt no obligation to stay off the historically highly charged issue of the Vietnam War. When the chief of the Australian Defence Force, Peter Cosgrove, expressed the view that it would be better if Australia had not been involved, Jeffrey said: “I believe passionately that Vietnam was a just cause in the circumstances of the time.” For a start he is a decorated and respected Vietnam Veteran and is entitled to an opinion and to voice it. While General Jefferys has contributed to Australia in a meaningful way Costellos track record as the oft quoted ‘chief-of-staff to Beasley’ leaves him as a sideline commentator and a jaundiced one at that. The historically highly charged issue of Vietnam was so charged by the anti-west antics of left wing non-contributors and commentators. Sidelined opinions from sidelined people who never got beyond the Marx of their uni days. The case against General Jefreys is still; he disagrees with left wing views. Costello makes another obscure point. Here is one example. The executive council, chaired by the Governor-General, must approve all bills passed by the House of Representatives and Senate before they can become law. The ministers who make up a quorum on the council frequently know very little about the bills in question, which are there to be approved pro forma, not debated. This Governor-General, however, seeks briefing papers on bills beforehand, and initiates discussion on them in the executive council. From the Government web site The Federal Executive Council comprises all ministers, with the Governor-General presiding. Its principal functions are to receive ministerial advice and approve the signing of formal documents such proclamations, regulations, ordinances and statutory appointments. Costello says; The ministers who make up a quorum on the council frequently know very little about the bills in question….. That’s a big call but if Costello is right, if I were Governor-General, I would want the ministers to be briefed on exactly what they are about to pass into law and yet Costello paints this as meddling. The professional world would paint it as doing his job in a professional manner. I presume when Labour was in power the ministers knew everything there was to know about the bills in question. Perhaps the Governor-General, who while affable, is something of a stickler for protocol, could focus instead on a role that is quintessentially that of a governor-general as commander in chief. Now lets see, how can we make a man who has the unique ability to appeal to all and yet still maintain the protocol that is expected of the Governor-General sound bad…….Affable but a stickler for protocol fits the bill nicely. If we can just restrict him to the parade ground we won’t have to confront his conservatism. He then goes on to say (and here’s his chance to dump on Howard) that the Governor-General should welcome all the troops home, not Howard. He mentions that a citizen, Sebastion Clark, suggested this as if it had the same weight as a referendum. Hey, let the elected leader of Australia welcome them home if that’s what he wants. One moment we shouldn’t have regal appointees and the next moment elected leaders are castigated for leading. Prime Ministers have always welcomed troops home and Governor-Generals have always officiated at the more formal parades and award ceremonies. Costello’s article clarifies his lack of knowledge about matters of high office. I guess we can’t win. When that chap Deane went around the country dumping on the elected government woe betide any right wing commentator that pointed out that Deane may be forgetting the protocol of the office of Governor-General. Costello’s point is that General Jefferys is conservative and does his job professionally while abiding to the protocols of office. Sounds good to me.
Politics

Speeding Revenue

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Don’t you just love the idiots writing to the press saying things like “If you don’t want to pay extra road taxes don’t speed”, “speed kills” and “if you speed you’re an idiot.” Speed doesn’t kill by itself. There are a lot of factors involved such as experience, the condition of the vehicle and tyres, the weather, other idiots on the road, fatigue, testosterone, alcohol,…the list goes on. But if you believe the politicians and police traffic spokesman speed is the killer. It’s a pity stats don’t back that up. “Every K over is a killer’ just doesn’t cut it as a stand-alone stat and is very clearly an exercise in getting the driving population to accept fines from cameras and radar for minor infringements. The only speed that kills is “inapproriate speed” and that can be possibly be defined as low as 20 kph in a 60 zone if any of the real killer factors are present. The young hoon drifting around the corner on drugs and two wheels near my quite suburban house is most probably only doing 20 kph but if anything happens he has no escape path – bang – a little kid is killed. That’s what the TV adds should concentrate on. My doing a 120 on a vacant four lane highway passing a semi in a 110 zone is as dangerous as my old golden retriever licking a burglar to death. The State Government, in this case, Queensland, have TV adds that emotively suggest that travelling at 61 kph in a 60 zone is tantamount to homicidal driving. See the little child killed…see the grieving mother weep…every k over is a killer. No mention of speedos only being accurate to 10% and the driver can’t tell the difference between 60 and 66 kph – only what his speedo reads. ` On the highway behind the B-Double semi that’s doing 110 downhill and 90 uphill you will have to break the speed limit either uphill or down to pass him in a passing lane . It’s unsafe to stay behind as you can’t read the traffic far enough ahead for safe driving but the wowsers would have you stay behind the semi for the entire journey. They’re the ones that are totally unaware of the traffic around them. So long as they watch their speedo and keep it under the posted limit then they are safe drivers and a warm glow suffuses their bodies after every righteous trip. But watch them on the dual highway doing 90 kph in the right lane alongside another vehicle and blocking ten or twenty people moving on as it’s a crime to speed and the limit is a 100 so why would you want to pass me and I’m actually unaware of the trafic behind me as the TV adds say every k over is a killer and I need to keep my eye on the speedo – not the trafic, not the people on the side of the road, not the body language of the driver in the vehicle in front….just the speedo. These dropkicks cause accidents but because the role of traffic branch is balanced in favour of revenue from the “every k over is a killer campaign” slow and dangerous drivers don’t show on radar. The hoon around the corner inappropriately speeding at 20 kph doesn’t show either – he’s safe because it has to be a k over before he’s a killer. Steve Bredhauer, the local Transport Minister quotes; Total crashes on a stretch of the autobahn in Germany dropped from around 300 per year to fewer than 30 when speed cameras were introduced. Fine, and your next point is? There must be another point because that stat alone says nothing. What were the limits on the autobahn before speed cameras. If my memory serves me right there was no limit This is the road system where Mercs, Alfas, Massaratis, and Porches drove at over 200 kph and have done so for decades. Driving at 200 kph is a different arguement and unsupportable because that is where speed can kill – not 110 kph in a 100 zone. What to do. While the state governments are reaping millions from these cameras I can’t see them letting a cash cow go. I note in Victoria they are talking about, or already have, implimented laws that bring the speedo tolerance to 3 or 4%. That is to say doing 64 k in a 60 zone will cost you. How on earth do we reconcile this with the fact that Australian Design Standards only demand 10% accuracy in new car speedos. Maybe I’m being cynical but that smacks of revenue. Even the dropkick drivers I referred to earlier in this post will be guilty of speeding. Or will they? No, they will simply drop their speed 10% to cover Gods rules on speeding and create more accidents. Police presence on the road is what we should have. Irrational drivers, dangerously unsafe vehicles or dangerous road conditions never show on camera but a patrol can impact on these real killer factors. Of course the state coffers bean counters will tell the Police and Transport minister that patrols cost money and cameras make money making their decisions easy – go for the money.
General Musings

Taliban with Aussie Passport

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I find this article in todays Courier Mail (Brisbane) somewhat alarming. I hope I’m not the only person to find the last sentence a contradiction AUSTRALIAN Federal Police were investigating the capture of an alleged former Taliban army general who slipped into Thailand with an Australian passport, AFP Commissioner Mick Keelty revealed today. Thailand’s Sunday Nation newspaper said the man, identified only as Montegoro, was stopped by police in Nonthaburi province near Bangkok. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) denied the man, an Australian citizen who came from Afghanistan as a refugee in the 1980s, posed any security concerns. He’s a Taliban General entering Thailand on an Australian passport and he doesn’t pose any security concerns. Are DFAT aware the war against terror hasn’t been won yet? The same paper has an article headed Al-Qaeda threats for Oz A VOICE purported to be that of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has taken specific aim at Australia in a new set of threats broadcast by Arabic television station Al-Jazeera. Lets see now. Doesn’t Osama have some connection with the Taliban? Isn’t there an APEC conference in Thailand this week with mobs of world leaders pontificating? Poses no security alarm….mmm. And how come he’s still an Australian citizen? I wonder how many German and Japanese Generals had Australian citizenship during World War Two?
War on Terror

Aussie Moslems

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Mmmm. I’m not convinced. Todays Australian has this article that smells of cannonisation. Hey, I’d love to think that our local Moslem fundamentalists are different from the overseas variety but in my opinion the jury is still out. Australia’s leading radical Islamic cleric has revealed he was told of a planned terrorist attack in Australia only months before the Sydney Olympic Games. Sheik Mohammed Omran, the Melbourne-based leader of the fundamentalist Ahl Sunnah wal Jama’ah Association, claims he advised against a plot to bomb targets in Australia in 2000 and threatened to go to the police. Threatened to go to the police? An old friend of mine phoned a week or two ago and told me of a conversation he had with a young aborigine that started with the predictable ‘got a smoke, mate’ and finished with a statement by the young bloke about people of middle east appearance approaching aborigines in North Queensland looking for malcontents and others to recruit to their evil cause. My friend, coincidently of dark appearance thought he should talk to the police. I agreed emphatically. Of course you should…NOW!. The police took him serious and a four hour interview ensued. (if there is any outcome that can be made public I’ll mention it here later) That’s what one does when you hear of people talking about terrorism – not just threaten. Disable the bastards if you can and call 000 straight away. In interviews with The Weekend Australian, Sheik Omran’s followers said they would go to him ahead of ASIO if they suspected one of their group was planning a terrorist act. Wrong. On his current form Sheik Omran would only threaten to tell the police and time wasted threatening and responding could have fatal consequences. I can’t help thinking the article is an attempt to make the Shiek appear responsible and anti-terrorist. Sheik Omran says he does not support terrorism and claims he is a force for peace within Australia’s fundamentalist Muslim community. But he admits to knowing many people who have been jailed for terrorist activities around the world. These include his long-time friend Abu Qutadar, the suspected head of al-Qa’ida in Europe, who is under arrest in Britain, and Bashir, who is serving a jail sentence in Indonesia. Sheik Omran was recently named in Spanish court documents as having links with the suspected leader of al-Qa’ida in Spain, Abu Dahdah – claims which the sheik has denied. Watch him!
War on Terror

Adams call us stupid

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I have been in situations where I couldn’t convert people to my opinions but I only sulked for a bit and then went on with life. Poor old Phillip has had to endure a lifetime of few converts. You see, whats important to Phillip doesn’t rate with most of us. It’s this very lack of fire in our bellies about left wing causes that puts Australia ahead of the pack in todays world. Go and read his piece in todays Australian and feel chastened. The typical left wing insult – us voters are too stupid to see the real issues. Get over it Phillip
Politics

Bush on Howard I found

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Bush on Howard I found that John Howard was a visionary person who can see beyond the noise inherant in a democracy. What the rabble don’t understand is that they are just that – a noise. The people at the football who boo’d Howard are just that, a noise, and their actions say more about them than it does about Howard. If Tasmanian anti-war MP Harry Quick stands up and puts his back to Bush then that reflects on Harry, not on Howard or Bush or, for that matter, Australia. I will be slightly embarrassed that Australia’s parliament has such an idiot in its ranks but I know the world will not think all of us are like that. Go for it, Harry you are nothing but the background noise of democracy. I surfed by The Age yesterday but couldn’t catch a wave – just ripples of malcontent. Of thirteen op-eds and features, thirteen are negative. A few examples – US heads fail to win Iraqi hearts, A bloody message for the US, For Americans, the mourning has just begun-Fears are growing that Iraq may turn into another Vietnam, Occupied Iraq will never know peace, Show us the documents, Mr Howard and A misuse of military might: Ho hum…just another credibility gap. Either The Age has a terribly small circulation or most people only buy it for the football results. A hundred percent anti-Howard/Bush/Iraq War does not reflect the opinions of the general public. 90% of their circulation must centre around Monash Uni or maybe Jim Cairns did a deal for his desk at the markets before he went off to have dinner with Stalin. More noise. Static in the background of the real world.
Politics

Bob Carr warns Lebanese thugs

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Bob Carr warns Lebanese thugs – obey our laws or go back home in this piece in todays Australian This is pretty easy for Bob to say as State Governments don’t have the power to send them home – it’s a federal thing, but this fact doesn’t detract from the message. The Melbourne gang wars aside, outright ‘machine gunning’ of people is not an Australian pastime. If we are not careful we will have wedding guests spraying AK47s in the air as a celebration and shooting down small aircraft. I’d like to think that we could pick up on Bobs ‘racist’ speech and say to these turkeys “One strike in certain crime divisions and all bets are off”. Crimes like murder and raping women ‘Leb Style’ get you a one way ticket back to the shit hole you come from. You want to live in a great society then you must remember that is great simply because we don’t put up with that filfth. Born on this day in 1946 I have lived through the great post war migration where Europeans came from troubled times in the old countries to the new. They brought with them culture, cuisine and artistic expression that has made the Australia of my senior years far better than the one of my youth. I like to look at it this way. If I invite you into my home what do you contribute? If it’s machine guns and rape you are not welcome. If you bring the hatreds of thousands of years of Middle East troubles and wish to practice them here then likewise I will not invite you to eat at my table. Thinking about it, what can the Middle East people contribute to Australia? Subjugation of women maybe – just ask my eldest daughter about how the Egyptian males treated her when she was touring the Pyramids. How to hate someone who doesn’t subscribe to your God – just ask the families of of the WTC and Bali victims. The only positive I can see is people from that area who are trying to distance themselves from these mindsets – they are worth the dinner invitation. The others? One strike and your out.
Uncategorized

Cairns Dead

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If I lived in Melbourne I would be around to dance on his grave. Not just in celebration but to trample the earth hard so he can’t be resurrected by his followers.

That’s a bit rough Kev, I can hear you say.

Hell it is! If I’m passionate about one thing in my life it’s the treatment handed out to us Vietnam Vets by the extreme left wing movement.

I have no problems with democracy, freedom of speach, the right to assembly, the right to disagree or the right to back a stupid cause and thus by extension I have no problems with the people who marched in the Morotoriums.

But hear me well; if you spat on one digger, if you called one vet a baby killer (it happened to me) or phoned one grieving parent then there is no honour for you here or anywhere else.

A couple of incidences; On 5 Feb 1968 Trent Grall then a corporal in the 7th Battalion was involved in a clash with the Viet Cong.

Three VC were killed and one, a lieutenant captured. Australian press carried the story including a picture of Trent guarding the 32 year old VC lieutenant. The article mentioned Trent’s home town making it easy for activists to track his parents. They received a string of abusive telephone calls from anti-war activists accusing him (because the Lieutenant appeared small in the photo) of being an abuser of Vietnamese children.

The same week Peter ‘Slippery’ Dowling (another corporal) says; “During Tete 68 we made contact with the NVA in a well fortified camp on and off over three days. We had 1 killed and 20 wounded…” The dead Aussie, our mate, someones son, brother, the light in some poor girls eyes, a hole in his mothers heart forever, Private Mick Ayres died in ‘Slippery’s’ arms. He died doing his duty – protecting his mates.

There was a particularly ugly aftermath to Mick’s death. In a vicious gesture, anti-Vietnam war protesters phoned his parents and said “he got what he deserved”. His parents have this dispicable act imprinted on their memory to this day.

Quotes from ‘Conscripts and Regulars’ by General Mike O’Brien, Allen and Unwin 1995 pp115,116.

Jim’s death is reported here in the Australian where Gough Whitlam feels a need to damn him with faint praise. Nevertheless, Gough Whitlam last night told The Australian: “Jim Cairns brought a nobility to the Labor cause which has never been surpassed.” Nobility? Cairns? Even Gough can’t believe that.

And this from Tom Uren; “Cairns did many great things for the ALP and for Australia, but the real tragedy of Jim Cairns was that he didn’t become the driving, creative minister he could have been,” Mr Uren said. “Jim Cairns belongs in the same mould as Nelson Mandela, Ho Chi Minh and Xanana Gusmao, who have the … humility, compassion, courage and commitment our human family needs,” he said.

Well Tom would say that, wouldn’t he? Kind of takes your breath away, doesn’t it? Arguably the worse Treasurer Australia has ever had, forced out of parliament for lying about offering Australia’s sovereignty to some Arabs; he wasn’t even smart enough to keep ‘a bit on the side’ on the side. News.com says it all…nothing. They don’t even mention Gough’s noble mate.

If the extreme left claim Cairn’s as their leader then like all commanders he must wear the consequences of the actions off his troops. You can’t cannonize the man and blame a few hard corps idiots. They fed and fattened on his attacks on the Aussie digger and open support of the communists.

I feel better now.

Commo Bastards
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