Retired infantry officer. Conservative by nature and politics; Happily married and father and grandfather of eight. Loves V8 powered Range Rovers, Golden Retrievers, good books and technology and think there should be open season on Greenies. Born in the mid forties and overdue for servicing but most parts still work.

More symbols

From todays Strewth column in the Australian

Clueless Viking

THE voyage of the Australian Customs Service ship Oceanic Viking ends when it docks in Fremantle this morning after a seven-week, 5000-nautical-mile voyage to monitor Japanese whaling activity in the Southern Ocean. About the only useful thing the ship did was to help transfer two anti-whaling activists, Benjamin Potts and Giles Lane of the vigilante conservationist group Sea Shepherd, from a Japanese harpoon boat back to the Steve Irwin. Crew aboard the Ocean Viking took photographs and video of the Japanese operations that it has been claimed may be used in legal action against Japan. Strewth hopes ACS chief executive Michael Carmody enjoys his home movies because legal experts are at a loss to nominate in what jurisdiction legal action can be taken against the Japanese.

I commented earlier

I do not sit easy with the fact that the government of a country like Australia is acting as a paid up member of a radical organization that terrorizes people going about their legitimate business.

The entire affair is very untidy and leaves Australia’s reputation as a reasoned and intelligent player shattered.

Nothing is going to happen. Rudd got his mileage from the non thinkers by misusing a ship for political gain. The Greenies swooned, the young voters said ‘cool Dude’, the Japanese rolled their eyes and ignored the ship and all is sweet with the world of the crazy left.

I would have to take DD McNicoll to task over his suggestion that transferring Benjamin Potts and Giles Lane from the Whaler to the Steve Irwin (so named to tug on warm and fuzzy Aussie heartstrings) was useful. The idiots should be have been left on the Jap whaler as playthings for the crew – their only chance in life of being useful.

Anyone like to comment on how much each Greenie vote cost the country once the costs of seven-week, 5000-nautical-mile voyage are factored in.

Even if it’s one cent per it’s too much.

Cate still playing Queen of the Fairies

Women, well OK, some a few women are complaining about the lack of gender balance at Rudd’s 2020 talk fest.

They should be more concerned that the only person representing their gender in Rudd’s major Distraction of the First Quarter is an actress. OK, so she’s a good actress but she cites Gore as her hero and lets face it, once fittingly played the Queen of the fairies.(LOTR) and has also worked out how to recycle and drink her own body waste.

If I was a woman I’d be insulted as well.

There are mobs of women better qualified and more acceptable to the non-left majority of the country but I guess that’s not the prerequisite for selection. A symbolic woman for a symbolic talk fest.

Fitzgibbon spinning

HERE’S a hot tip. (from Greg Sheridan) There is not the slightest chance Australia will buy any F-22 Raptor aircraft, and there is almost no chance that we will ditch the F/A-18 Super Hornets that the previous government was going to buy.

If the Raptor is not built for export why would anyone think the US would sell it to us. Well, actually people don’t but Fitzgibbon would have us believe it’s on the table so that he can look like he is managing the portfolio and in doing so pointing out how Howard’s government didn’t.

The US have already refused to sell it to the Japs and to Howard so in what fairy story does a Republican lead administration change it’s policy for a newly elected Labour government.

None that I’ve read lately.

Rudd’s takes an RDO

Australia’s Chief Clerk, Kevin Rudd has decreed that all pollies should spend 5 days a week in the house. For a long time the house has closed on Fridays to allow our elected reps to work their electorates which I see as reasonable.

On the first friday of sitting the house erupts as Rudd doesn’t even bother to attend – in person anyway.

Cardboard Rudd

I think it’s funny and they make a good point

For the first time under the Rudd Government, parliament is sitting on a Friday to allow backbenchers to speak their minds – in a day that is already being dubbed Rudd’s Day Off or RDO.

But Coalition MPs are angry that Fridays have no proper votes, no question time where ministers can be grilled by the Opposition, and quorum will not be recorded.

In effect, Parliament is not sitting and the opposition question the legality of the Friday ‘Backbencher’s speaking their mind’ kind of day

Deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop told The Australian Online today the Coalition was urging the Government to seek legal advice on whether parliamentary privilege was still operating.

Keep shooting from the hip, Kev – your bound to do some good for the country eventually.

Pit Bulls again

Recently a pit bull that was ‘loved by everyone’ attacked two women, one of whom is the dog owner’s 11 year old sister who presumably doesn’t love the dog anymore. The young girl is recovering from re constructive surgery to her leg.

People are actually having a debate as to whether the tradie who dropped the dog with a nail gun did the right thing. Some are saying “Dogs don’t kill people,” “people who breed killer dogs kill people”. Well, working on the basis that we can’t arbitrarily or summarily execute dog owners, the only way to stop the problem is to shoot the dog.

More;

“The tradesman should be investigated and charged with cruelty to animals. No animal deserves to die.”

and, more wierdly;

“Everyone is always quick to put the poor dog down, even when all it did was act on instinct and do what it thought was right.”

The fact that crocodiles eat people ‘on instinct‘ while ‘doing what they think is right‘ is no reason not to shoot the beast as it tries to eat a member of your family.

I bet these people even get to vote and voted for the shiny thing in the next paddock – Rudd

Flashback: A family gathering at a small farm in South West Australia. Uncle Sam’s cattle dog bites me, a five year old, on the leg in the corridor. Uncle Sam, with my father breathing down his neck, kills the dog on the spot. Yep, in the corridor of the farm house. A .22 cal round in the head with some care taken as to ensure the bullet doesn’t ricochet ended that dogs attempt to climb up the evolutionary chain.

That’s what you do with dogs that attack people. Anything else is ignoring the relevant species’s master/servant relationship.

The distraught owner says she wants another pit bull and this link has a pic of her crying over the dog’s body.

Her sister will be pleased.

Mr 70%

Rudd must be happy with his 70% approval rating as PM but he will also be holding his breath as Australians’ absorb the fact that he tells lies as well.

KEVIN Rudd yesterday described how he purposely misled disgraced former West Australian premier Brian Burke to avoid attending a dinner being organised by the influence-peddler. He released emails to prove the point but does not talk of telephone calls that set up his withdrawal for the proposed dinner.

The emails were obviously born out of desperation after a staffer or adviser pointed out to Rudd that dinner with a ex convict and king maker would look bad.

When the matter was raised last year by Howard, Rudd blustered and told lies;

Mr Rudd said he was unaware of the ban on contact with Mr Burke imposed by then WA premier Geoff Gallop.

Bullshit! Everybody in Australia who reads newspapers was aware of the ban on contact with Brian Burke imposed by Geoff Gallop.

You don’t even have to read between the lines to realize Rudd was talking to Burk as part of his plan of ascendancy to the chair he holds today.

Also;

Mr Rudd said he had no recollection of discussing the Labor Party leadership with Mr Burke at any time.

Yeah, right!

The issue will most probably fade as the media are enjoying the honeymoon just as much as the ALP but some supporters must be feeling a little uneasy.

The discerning ones at least.

UPDATE:Peter van Onselen writing for the Australian delves deeper.

ALP share the pain

LABOR MPs have just voted in caucus for a 12-month wage freeze for all MPs, to signal that “restraint needs to be shared” to fight inflation.

But it remains unclear whether it will happen if Coalition MPs do not back the plan. MPs’ and senators’ pay is determined by the independent Remuneration Tribunal and is not determined by MPs or parliament.

The proposal will now go to the tribunal, with Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard to run the “machinery” of the submission process.

Whatever, token symbolism for public consumption or a heart felt and rational decision, it’s reasonable but quiet frankly, Kevin, I’m more concerned about wage freezes for unions.

How about it? Are they going to join in the new ALP restraint sharing as well?

Anna Bligh furious

QUEENSLAND PREMIER Anna Bligh has labelled the National Party racist after the state opposition refused to support an apology to the stolen generations made by state parliament nine years ago.

As the nation stopped for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s speech, Queensland Parliament descended into furious debate when Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg said the state government should apologise to Aborigines for failing to make inroads into indigenous issues.

The opposition also used question time to attack the government on its record on issues such as child safety, including the gang rape of an 10-year-old girl in Aurukun, indigenous infant mortality rates, education and alcoholism.

Left wing Anna doesn’t disappoint – whenever you question a lefty they retort with personal attacks. They never, ever answer the question.

I guess I’d be furious too if some inconvenient MP pointed out the obvious truth that Queensland apologised to the Aborigines nine years ago and if anything, their situation is worse post-apology than it was before. Particularly when it was done on the day that the Country was all a flutter about an apology from Canberra.

“What followed this morning was the most graceless and mealy-mouthed excuse to avoid the issue,” Ms Bligh said.

“There was an opportunity there to rectify the failure of 1999 and it was comprehensively missed.”

Right, so what she is saying is;

The 1999 apology has failed so what we will do is exactly the same and you’re a racist for not complying.

Makes sense in a lefty sort of way.

Bloody Nationals, they demanded actions instead of words – how racist is that.

Sorry’s not enough

Whenever someone had an occasion to apologise to me for some error I would always say” Don’t go on about being sorry for what you did, just tell me what you are going to do to ensure we don’t arrive at this set of circumstances again. When I had to apologise to Army superiors I would, in my more mature years at least, admit to stuffing up and quickly follow up with an outline on what steps I had taken to ensure it wouldn’t happen again.

Disarming and constructive.

I would like to think Rudd would have done something similar with his apology in the house. If he had spent one paragraph saying sorry and the rest of the ninety minutes outlining what he is going to do to prevent a re-occurrence then there would have been some merit in the occasion.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen happen. It turned into a frenzy of wailing and teeth gnashing with a song and dance act choreographed for TV. I’m also afraid that some of the factors that have lead us to this frenzy will be reestablished in the not to distant future as the left gain ascendancy in the ALP.

The Sorry business is being handled poorly. I would want a Task Force, an enlargement or follow up to Mal Brough’s plan, to move into the areas and clean it up in all the interpretations of the word. Swamp the problem – overkill ..gives kids with new medical, health and education degrees HECS payback for one or two years commitment. Call on the Grey Nomads (look at that huge source of experience) Call for volunteers to help – I would put my hand up, but lets not go back to the land rights, sit-down money, isolated outstations, no education, no discipline, access (hide the problems) by permit only, noble warrior bullshit of the Left.

As a matter of interest, how are we going to handle the fact that hundreds, if not thousands of kids need to be removed from their dysfunctional families right now – today. Should we set a date in our calendars, say twenty years hence, to apologise to them?

And who actually should be apologizing and to whom?

David Moore ex chief of staff to former Liberal Aboriginal affairs minister Mal Brough expands on this;

The confusion starts at the top. Last week Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said we needed an apology before we could tackle the problems. But the people to whom he is apologising are a small proportion of the Aboriginal community. The majority weren’t part of the Stolen Generations and they have entrenched problems. The assumption that an apology to the minority will fix the entrenched problems of the majority is misplaced.

David thinks a lot of other people should be apologising and I can’t help but agree with him.

Every Premier for not providing infrastructure; every Education Minister for not insisting black kids have an education; every Attorney General for not applying the law equally to all; the Hawke Keating government for handing the problem over to the dysfunctional ATSIC and the Whitlam and Fraser governments for burying the issues in outstations and hiding them with permit-only entry.

Not to mention the Left wing academics for screaming every time governments tried to do something constructive and the public service chiefs who allowed the circumstances to exist where abused kids were not removed from dysfunctional families due to fear staff had of being accused of starting another Stolen Generations.

Go ahead, have your warm and fuzzy day. You mob in the suburbs who have never been west or north and seen the real problem, roll around in an ecstacy of righteousness but for Christ’s sake, tomorrow, let’s get on with fixing the problem.

As an aside, how would you like to be the first person who recommends, post Sorry Day, in the face of overwhelming evidence of child abuse, that a child be removed from the parents care, or lack of it?

9/11 planners for the high jump

THE Pentagon today said it would charge six Guantanamo inmates with 2,973 counts of murder over their role in the September 11 attacks.

The suspects include the self-confessed mastermind of the terror attacks, Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

“The defendants will face the possibility of being sentenced to death,” said Brigidier General Thomas Hartmann, a Pentagon legal advisor, announcing the move.

Good!

The CIA admitted publicly for the first time last week, some of his confessions were extracted during sessions when he was subjected to “waterboarding,” a drowning simulation technique widely regarded as torture.

Brigidier General Hartmann admitted that the first court battles are likely to focus on the admissibility of such confessions, as well as the legality of the tribunal itself. The tribunal rules have been extensively re-written since the Supreme Court ruled they breached the Geneva Convention and demanded more rights for defendants.

Now we will have the Human Rights (no Responsibility) mob queuing up to prattle on about torture. Some will even demand they be released because they had water poured over their faces and a confession obtained under torture is no confession.

Some of these people will be Americans, some Australian, all of whom enjoy the benefits of western civilization while trying to undermine what made it great in the first place.

Just make sure they did it and then top the bastards – the terrorists that is. We have to put up with the other bastards.

1 102 103 104 105 106 229