Daily Diatribe

You’ll be surprised to know that expatriate fruitcup John Pilger has listened to Mamdouh Habib’s publicist/promoter solicitor Stephen Hopper and has accepted his anti-Australian gibberish at face value.

………..a lawyer, Stephen Hopper, stood and spoke. It was as if a long silence had been shattered. Hopper is the lawyer for Mamdouh Habib, one of two Australians imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay. He described Habib’s suffering and torture, first in Egypt where he was “rendered” by the Americans after they had kidnapped him in Pakistan. In a CIA-supported prison in Egypt, he was suspended from the ceiling with only an electrified barrel to stand on. “He would stand and get a shock or hang painfully by his arms until he’d collapse,” said Hopper. He was blindfolded and locked in rooms that were flooded with water and charged with electricity. In Guantanamo Bay, the guards brought a prostitute who “stood over him naked while he was strapped to the floor and menstruated on him”. Photographs of Habib’s wife and four children were defaced. “The Americans in their wisdom have taken the heads off the pictures,” said Hopper, “enlarged them and superimposed them with the heads of animals and then strung them up all over the walls of the interrogation room. [They said to him]: ‘It’s a shame we had to kill your family.’” We know about these atrocities from the earlier accounts of the British prisoners. What is different here is that no government calling itself democratic has so completely collaborated with the Guantanamo regime as that of John Howard.

That evil bastard John Howard- he probably snuck out of Kirribilli House at night and made catcalls from across the road at the cowering Habib family, while Phillip Ruddock rocked the roof.

Good to see Pilger’s sense of jounalistic ethics is as strong as ever- blindly accept the word of a partisan source as fact, no attempt to check facts or confirm details, as long as it suits his particular bias.

Sydney readers will be fortunate enough to be graced with the stellar presence of Pilger on March 10th for yet another whinge-fest; get along and show him the welcome he deserves.

What do inner-city Redfern and far-outer south western suburb MacQuarie Fields have in common? One is an Aboriginal barrio, created by wooly-headed thinking in the ’70s to set up a community for blow-ins from western NSW reserves, now a ghetto and smack gallery, the other populated by white-trash bogans; not a lot, you would think, until the residents of McQuarie Fields took to the streets to act like arseholes following the death of two young pinheads in a police persuit in a stolen car, nearly identical to the drunken rioting in Redfern following the death of another young criminal.

Besides the high level of welfare dependance in both areas, both have high levels of criminality and parental indifference to same; as usual, the cops are to blame for a couple of scumbags coming to an early end, not the douchebag driving the hot car (who decamped from the scene leaving his mates to croak), the two idiots themselves who voluntarily took part in a chase in a stolen vehicle or their halfwitted parent(s) who allow them to engage in dangerous criminal behaviour.

My sympathy lies with the owner of the car, who’s had his ride smashed up and lost his no-claim bonus (if he’s insured); the “loss” of two unemployable thieves is a bonus both to the budget bottom line and the gene pool.

I think a lot of people think the same way- we’ve had a gutful of paying for and pandering to a so-called “underclass” who are nothing but parasites- all they produce is more of their own dependant kind and a vibrant insurance industry.

(Why aren’t assorted safety-nazis being blamed for this “tragedy” as well, after all the little darlings came unstuck when they hit yet another piece of traffic calming; I always thought those random buckles in the road were deadly).

UPDATE Raff provides an example of how a professional police force deals with smartarse young hoons who are reluctant to stop when ordered to do so.

A little harsh, perhaps, but saves expensive body repairs to the car (although the detailing of the upholstery can be pricey; blood and bone splinters are a bitch to remove).

UPDATE 2 A very helpful god-botherer has assured authorities that he could solve the problems of MacQuarie Fields for a measley 4 million bucks- considering the poultice of public money that would have already been poured into this welfare black hole, I seriously doubt the veracity of this; however, it could be fixed for a great deal less- I’m sure a hot shot of smack for every oxygen thief in the suburb would run to a lot less than 4 big ones.

Let’s see what a couple of local civic leaders have to say:-

I’m going to talk to all these boys today. Right, they’re all prepared to talk to me, okay? I’m standing up here negotiating with Mr Sweeney on his behalf, okay? There’s a few of ‘em here now, alright? They will listen to me. I am going to talk to ‘em today, okay? And we’re gonna try and stop it from happening again tonight.

How could they not respond to such a forceful and reasoned plea?

No doubt the excesses of the NSW Police must shoulder the bulk of the blame, what with viciously standing by and watching the little bastards run amok and letting the driver of the stolen car walk out of the local station uncharged so he could join in the fun.

Of course, the real reason is clear- it’s because we rotten middle-class swine just don’t care, and these poor misunderstood urchins are scum because of their disadvantaged location and lack of incentive for their parent(s):-

“What we need to do is demolish the housing estate and start again, and disperse the disadvantaged people throughout the community,” he says. The property should be turned over to private developers, with one in five of the new homes designated for public housing.

And after that, parents should be given incentives to control and educate their children, Banfield says.

At least you would be removing one charge from the booking sheet- they wouldn’t need to steal a car to burgle your house and shit all over the furniture if they lived next door. How’s this for an incentive- if your little darling twocks a car, vandalises property or otherwise makes a swine of him/herself, mum (and rarely dad) get to pay for it. The bulldozing’s a good idea, but how about the job be sub-contracted out to the Israeli Defence Force?

About 4AM the day after benefit payday, they should all be in comas and the whole flyblown edifice could be quietly buried and turned into something useful, like a landfill.

UPDATE 3 Strangely enough, the migrant community is less than impressed:-

Geez.. what a lucky country we live in?

If these silly riots happened where I come from, we would have read a small news article in the left hand corner of the Middle page.
“Police fire at rioting mob, killing all 100. Parents behind bars for insitgating riots”.

Alistair Menquaidez

(From the SMH your say pages, which feature a few of the usual Police evil face of repressive regime/inevitable response to neglect/isolation/marginalisation wombats, but an overwhelming majority who’d like to see the lot of them run over by earthmoving equipment and set on fire; a bit of a turn-up for the books by Haus uf Hillmer standards.)

Strangely, an El Salvadorian client of mine who was just in the office said almost exactly the same thing, but also remarked about what amateur rioters the perpetrators were, and how inaccurate and innefective their ordnance.

That’s one thing- there is never likely to be any need to call out the military to deal with these deadshits- they’re usually too wasted to be able to do much damage, hit anything of importance and actually organise themselves to cause real trouble.

Still, the idea of clearing the street with one of these has some appeal.

The above photo was not in fact a result of the previous item, but a pretty spectacular shot taken by accident:-

I happened to be out in the back yard, watching a storm on Friday Night (14/01/05), that appeared to be a few km away, (I live in Toongabbie, and the storm appeared to be in Pendle Hill, or Greystanes).
I set the camera’s settings so that the shutter remained open for four seconds, placed it on the back bumper of my car, hoping to get a few shots of lightning in the clouds a few km’s away. There was no rain at all,
and stars could be seen over the north 1/3 of the sky, so I did not feel in danger in any way, boy was I mistaken…… DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE ELECTRICAL STORMS, YOU COULD GET YOURSELF KILLED!

When lightning strikes, it actually comes up from the ground first (called a leader stroke), this stroke makes the air within it conductive, and once it reaches the cloud, you have a complete circuit, and the bolt of lightning comes down from the cloud along the leader stroke. First leader to the cloud wins, luckily mine did not. I estimate that the main bolt was approx 1.5 - 2 metres in diameter, and struck something in the yard behind
the shed that is located at the back of the yard. That would have had an extremely large charge, and would have been extremely hot, hotter than the surface of the sun, at 5,500 degrees Celsius, it could have been around 30,000 degrees Celsius. Needless to say, I was buzzing for the rest of Friday night, due to the amount of adrenline going through me cause of how close it had come.

I’ve had a close strike with lightning, and it’s not fun; I was standing on the tarmac at Brisbane Airport waiting for Bob Hawke’s VIP RAAF flight to pull up (senior officer on duty, have to meet and greet incoming puffbuckets- collosal pain in the arse) when out of no-where the light gantry I’m standing about 15 metres from takes a direct hit and I’m flat on my back several metres from where I was standing, deaf as a post except for a loud buzzing and periferal flashes in my vision. Not all bad, it meant I couldn’t understand a thing that Blubby Boy had to say, so it looks like every cloud/silver lining rings true.

Most concern about the declining condition of Pope John Paul II has concentrated on the possibility of him being afflicted with Parkinsons (I didn’t know he’d even been on the show- after all, he knows fuck-all about cricket). This is what the Vatican wants you to believe, to hide the shameful truth- the Pope actually popped his slippers several weeks ago, and has been re-animated in a dodgy Caribbean Catholic ceremony; have you noticed how they won’t let him near a microphone any more? Before you couldn’t shut him up- it was homos going to hell by golly this and contraception is made personally by Satan that, now we don’t get boo.

Easily explained- the faithful could be more than a little disturbed if Il Papa turned up on his balcony and started yabbering along these lines ……..yaaargh brains……….. I bet you thought those little skullcaps worn by the Cardinals were a cloth item- in fact kevlar so the Pontiff can’t make a move on their cerebellum when they’re not watching.

Personally, I think a zombie Pope has a lot going for it- the faith is heavily based on the idea of ressurecting the dead, what better then to have a member of the recently deceased as its senior representative?

If you’ve ever wondered what swilling eight pots of draino in a hour will do to a breathalyser without the accompanying beating, taser jolts, pepper spray, arrest and sodomy by a filthy vagrant in the watch-house, go here and take the test.

It’s a little unrealistic, as it only has an upper limit of eight drinks- why it doesn’t cater to the thirsty individual I have no idea. It also seems a little wussy- eight jars of fortified wine in an hour produces advice to seek medical attention; I would have thought it would advise to chase it off with a couple of cleansing ales.

Want to troll through Paris’ adress book? Check out her tacky SMS log? Find out when her next appointment at the chlamydia clinic is? You sad, pathetic bastard- here you go, knock yourself out.

I feel like Hugh Grant- fancy being caught on camera getting head in Chinatown:-

Having a fifteen year old Chinese girl kneel on your shoulders is actually nowhere near as much fun as it sounds.

(I await the first gag about always looking like cat vomit/hairball etc).

Yet another scoop- this time we’ve been supplied with a prime evidence exhibit for the upcoming Michael Jackson trial:-

Looks like the finger of guilt is pointing at the mutilated moonwalker.

An incriminating tape has also come to light, involving one of the alleged victims and an encounter with the defendant. Nothing is said, but shortly after Jackson enters the room the alleged victim exclaims “OOOWWWW!!!”. It is not known if it is an attempt at impersonating the defendant, or something related to the exhibit above.

Costs are starting to eat into Jackson’s fortune, causing him to embark on a new endevour to fund the ongoing court actions.

“Even if it doesn’t change anything- protesting is worthwhile if you piss off conservatives”……- facially pierced, tattoo’d ageing pinhead from long forgotten US punk act Anti Flag, speaking to two other non-entity activists on ABC yoof radio JJJ.

Well, if pissing us off gives you vicarious thrills, I’m happy for you- you are obviously very easily pleased. When it comes to who gives who the shits, we evil conservative swine make you lefty losers look like the disorganised, ineffectual rabble you are.

I can only imagine the frothing rage that assorted luvvies, Balmain bolsheviks and olive ranchers will be thrown into with the news that the lovely Janet Albrechtsen has been appointed to the ABC board; absolutely stunning- the left has been demanding greater female representation in such august posts, and they’ve got a well educated, erudite one with lengthy media experience.

Only a truly evil, vindictive and malevolent mind could come up with such a brazen and blatant assault on the left, which can not be attacked without the spectre of sexism and bias arising.

I doff my chapeau- I thought I was a vicious bastard, but I would never have thought of this.

Not that it’s difficult to send Bob Brown into a hissy fit, but in one swoop PM John Howard has given Bob the vapours, made Kim Beasley repeat himself like a broken record then go off to sulk and turned the moonbat anti-war fringe into a shrieking bedlam- all by deploying 450 troops# to assist in a humanitarian effort and defend Japanese roadbuilders in the southern Al Mithanna province.

Desperate hacks such as the always reliable Tony Jones have been trying to drag an Indo-China anology from anyone, firstly Labor’s leading Lard Lad, then pathetically the Man of Steel; nary a quagmire, civil war or other Veeetnam reference to be found- even Fat Boy wasn’t that stupid (unlike most of the MSM).

Perhaps a Vietnam analogy* is accurate; when the Australian Task Force moved into Phuoc Tuoy province in South Vietnam, it was very much indian country, with NVA insertions and a very active NLF (Viet Cong) unit called D445 making pricks of themselves.

By the time the task force left, enemy activity was virtually nil, D445 had been taken of the roll of active units and the locals were hugely supportive of the Australian presence, especially due to the number of infrastructure projects completed by field engineers.

(*I made this point to the gibbering idiots over at Margo Magoo’s, and was immediately deleted- can’t have a reasoned argument with factual backup when there’s polemic blather to be spouted).

(#Sending a light armoured brigade of 450 to replace 1500 Dutchmen is possibly overkill- a troop of boyscouts on red cordial would be about an equal replacement, but if you’ve got an army, you might as well use it- the chance to shoot arseholes doesn’t come up that often anymore. As usual, the ones making all the noise don’t include the buggers who are going to be targetted- the CO reports officers being besieged by volunteers for active service, but what serving diggers think doesn’t rate consideration by the perpetually outraged).

BTW, Labor could be in strife in Werriwa, with the Socialist Equality Party throwing their combination beanie/turban into the ring.

UPDATE We have a Vietnam analogy! As expected, it’s come from Malcom Fraser-like silly old fart Major General Alan Stretton (ret), making a tool of himself on 2UE with the equally intellectually challenged John Laws.

(Has this git ever actually been shot at or was he always a rear-echelon wallah?)

Yup, just like Vietnam, except for the lack of jungle, forest, heavily grassed plains, inaccessible mountains, well trained and numerous professional enemy with direct supply lines from a Communist superpower, sizeable local support for guerrilla units, ingrained history of nationalist struggle and complete lack of any democratic processes- just about bloody identical. What is the same is the blinkered propagandising by the media and fifth-column support of the enemy by inner-urban cheese dicks who wouldn’t know geopolitics from a tofu enema.

UPDATE 2 Commenter Red has come up with the quote of the week:-

You mean Australian Diggers will get to watch Japs build Bridges and railways for a change?

Tee Hee.

UPDATE 3 ABC AM had Janet on this morning, already raising questions of bias and conflict of interest; (Albrechtsen is a freelance columnist for Murdoch- it didn’t seem to bother them to have a Fairfax employee on leave on air hosting Media Watch- perhaps being a blithering Balmain basketweaver makes you exempt from these considerations). The morning gerbils on JJJ got in with the first shot, reviving the skanky ‘ho line, the ALP is livid and staff-appointed board member and delightful cutie-pie Ramona Koval is fit to be tied- as previously stated, absolutely stunning.

The perpetrator is due a gold star and an early slip for this effort.

It’s a given these days that it’s difficult to get good candidates for federal elections, harder still at the state level and by the time you get to local government it would be unwise to demand proof of species; Stephen Marchett (although it’s on Imre Salusinszky’s byline) does a stirling job on describing the sort of bottom-feeders, officious bucketheads and dribbling loons that are attracted by a term in council.

Why do we even bother with local government? Let’s face it, their sole raison d’ etre is to sluice away shit, pick up rubbish and provide water that most of the time doesn’t block your taps due to the number of pathogens and dead rodents in the plumbing (and most of them don’t do that very well either).

Property owners contract the council to provide these services- surely an administration could do likewise without the tiresome rhetoric of partisan politics and an infestation of interest groups expecting others to fund their ambitions for a gallery of amputee art, lesbian shadow puppet theatre and free transport for people too cheap to buy a car or scooter.

It’s not just here- every western nation is plagued at the local government level by corrupt toads, dingbats, minority pressure groups, restoration nazis, public transport flakes and culture hoovers. Time to privatise.

Elsewhere, Peter Saunders of the CIS looks at plans to overhaul welfare- too little and too late in my view, but anything is better than nothing. Whether any substantial reduction in the amount of revenue shovelled into this bottomless pit results in an equal reduction in the amount of usury extracted from our wallets is yet to be seen.

What astounds me is the fact that among all the snorking about a growing and permament labour shortage in the Australian market, no-one has mentioned the fact that there are (as at 2003-4) over half a million people recieving unemployment benefits, and an additional 1.5 million recieving the Disability Support Pension.

Two million people is a pretty sizeable pool of labour in my books; one reform that is needed more than anything else is removal of any exclusions regarding inability to take positions offered- if there is any position available and a welfare recipient refuses work for any reason, their eligibility for benefit ceases.

Once most of the currently idle are actually earning a living rather than sponging on others, welfare can be phased out and replaced with voluntary insurance. Easy.

Political will to do so, nil.

I’ve always been suspect how government of either side regard welfare as untouchable; after all, a large group of compliant voters reliant on government largesse is a decent pool of ballots that can be relied on before you even have to consider policy.