Sunday, May 29, 2005
ECONOMIC PREDICTION ASTRAY
Michael Moore two years ago:
Listen, friends, you have to face the truth: you are never going to be rich. The chance of that happening is about one in a million. Not only are you never going to be rich, but you are going to have to live the rest of your life busting your butt just to pay the cable bill and the music and art classes for your kid at the public school where they used to be free.
And reality today:
The number of millionaires in the U.S. increased to a record last year, boosted by gains in stocks and global financial markets, according to two new studies.
The number of U.S. households with a net worth of $1 million or more rose 21% in 2004, according to a survey released yesterday by Spectrem Group, a wealth-research firm in Chicago. It is the largest increase since 1998, according to the study, which was based on data from more than 450 qualified respondents. There now are 7.5 million millionaire households in the U.S., breaking the record set in 1999 of 7.1 million.
Hope these poor bastards can keep up with their cable payments.
CALL WEIGHTWATCHERS
Indy racer Robby Gordon is scared of little girls:
Robby Gordon accused Danica Patrick of having an unfair advantage in the Indianapolis 500 and said Saturday he will not compete in the race again unless the field is equalized.
Gordon, a former open-wheel driver now in NASCAR, contends that Patrick is at an advantage over the rest of the competitors because she only weighs 100 pounds. Because all the cars weigh the same, Patrick’s is lighter on the race track.
“The lighter the car, the faster it goes,” Gordon said. “Do the math. Put her in the car at her weight, then put me or Tony Stewart in the car at 200 pounds and our car is at least 100 pounds heavier.
“I won’t race against her until the IRL does something to take that advantage away ...
“Right off the bat, a guy my size is spotting her 105 pounds,” Gordon said. “That’s the reason she’s so much faster.”
Odd that disparate driver weights weren’t a major issue until Patrick came along. A number of male drivers weigh less than Gordon; some are tiny, yet Gordon raced against them without complaint. In fact, he didn’t whine when he raced against little Sarah Fisher at Indy five years ago. Perhaps that was due to her qualifying 15 places behind Gordon, despite weighing only 120 pounds ...
NON-FLYING NUN
You’re grounded, Sister Augustus:
Sister Ruth Augustus said that British Airways would not allow her to fly because she was carrying a two foot statue of the Virgin Mary.
Speaking about the incident, Sister Augustus told BBC Scotland: “When they said I couldn’t take the statue on the plane I said I’m reporting you and it’s disgraceful behaviour.”
Then she went on a riot and killed 15 people. In other religious-object developments, the New York Daily News reports that “this Koran-abuse fracas has gone daffy”:
Our military commanders should be spending their time fighting a war; instead, they’re devoting gazillions of man-hours to investigating claims that Gitmo interrogators might have aggrieved a Muslim detainee or two.
Several of these claims have proved spurious. Several others perhaps appear to warrant disciplinary reproval - a handful of incidents, hardly suggestive of systemic policy. Sorry about those hurt feelings, detainees. Not that you’re getting your heads sawed off ...
There are even troops in Iraq under orders to don gloves before touching any Koran - this show of reverence for a sacred volume anyone can buy in any bookstore.
I blame Borders.
ZIONISTS CLAIM SWITZERLAND
A Swiss Muslim activist is angered by a court verdict that didn’t rule against describing Islamists as terrorists:
“Justice is denied by this verdict and apparently the court has come under intense pressure from media, which used Islam and Muslims as a scarecrow,” Palestinian-born Ahmed Elisa told IslamOnline.net on Saturday, May 28.
He charged that the court was influenced by “Zionist-run western newspapers” ...
Ahmed must be a Webdiary reader.
CORBY LATEST
Too bad Oliver Stone wasn’t arrested in Bali. Meanwhile, Schapelle Corby’s legal team says she won’t seek a pardon:
The legal team said to do so would mean admitting to a crime she did not commit.
“The girl is not guilty,” said defence adviser Vasu Rasiah. “How can she ask for a pardon?”
Rasiah is an impressive fellow. TV footage this weekend showed him learning of prosecution plans to appeal for a longer sentence. His immediate reaction: “They can go to hell.” Which is the general response of Australians to Indonesian charity requests:
One of Australia’s largest charities, the Salvation Army, said on Sunday that public anger over convicted drug runner Schapelle Corby’s jailing in Bali was hampering its main annual fundraising drive, with many households demanding a guarantee their donations will not be used in Indonesia.
Sad and unfair, but understandable. The Herald Sun presents a photo timeline of Corby’s ordeal.
PALESTINE PART OF EUROPE
France is voting today on the EU constitution (according to the New York Times, the main issues are all to do with the Palestinian Authority). The whole EU deal is a ripoff, claims a new report:
Britain is losing 200 million pounds (290 billion euros, 365 billion dollars) a year due to its membership in the European Union, according to a detailed cost analysis to be published next month.
“The cost of the EU to Britain is equivalent to the UK economy remaining stagnant for eight years,” said co-author Philip Booth of the conservative Institute of Economic Affairs, quoted in The Business, a Sunday newspaper.
Direct contributions to the EU budget, higher food prices due to the Common Agricultural Policy, higher costs for manufactured goods, lack of competition in services, and red tape are imposing high costs on Britain, the report says.
But consider all the benefits!
MAN OF 1,000 BARS
Only 500 bars to go for Dan Freeman:
The Brooklynite set out Jan. 1 to visit 1,000 bars in a single year, a cocktail lounge quest that began with one scotch and soda in Mike’s Pelham Grill. Barely five months and 499 bars later, the Don Quixote of drink is halfway to completing his boozy impossible dream. Why 1,000 bars, you ask? Why not?
“There wasn’t any grand scheme,” explained Freeman, a tall draft beer in hand at bar No. 500, The Gate in Brooklyn. “I just wanted to see how many bars you could hit in a year, and 1,000 seemed reasonable.”
The retired computer consultant launched a simultaneous blog about his pursuit, converting Freeman into a semi-cult cyber star.
Freeman has maintained commendable semi-sobriety throughout this adventure. Well, almost. His wife comments:
“He’s been pretty responsible, with a few lapses we won’t talk about.”
Drink on, Dan!
Saturday, May 28, 2005
ASYLUM SOUGHT
Margoville is in meltdown! Yesterday brave dissident leader Margo Kingston posted some ill-tempered remarks about her employers, claiming they’d been unhelpful in solving Webdiary’s technical problems and that Fairfax bosses had avoided meeting her to discuss matters.
That post quickly disappeared. When it returned, all critical comments were missing. Margo explains:
The bits deleted from this post were not deleted by me, and were deleted without my prior knowledge. I am unable to comment further at this time.
She’s been silenced! The rest of the contentious post is by Margo functionary Caroline Compton, and details plans to flee the Sydney Morning Herald:
4. Finding Webdiary a new home
This is our present priority.
So set up at blogger and start posting. It’s just that easy! Webdiary is instead adopting the elaborate Compton Plan, an insanely complex and grandiose proposal featuring five separate teams of industrious Margolians all devoted to The Project:
Team Beta: Supporting Webdiary
Objectives: To provide functional support for Webdiary, including fundraising and brainstorming possible donation and registration models. The intention is to raise funding for additional manpower to assist Margo in running Webdiary. All ideas will be considered/approved by the management team, at which point they will be returned to Team Beta for implementation.
Team Leader: VACANT
Team Members/Roles/Functions: Marketing, “Sales People” (attending functions etc..), Merchandising, Product designers, various others - any one with ideas, or who is able/willing to get involved at a more practical level.
Please, God, please let this happen. The world needs Margo merchandise.
Friday, May 27, 2005
CORBY LATEST
The Australian reports:
Schapelle Corby is likely to spend at least the next five years in an Indonesian jail cell even if the Howard Government strikes a deal with Jakarta for her to be sent home, after the Gold Coast student was sentenced to 20 years in prison for drug-smuggling yesterday.
Many are distressed and furious over Corby’s sentence. From Cindy Wockner, whose coverage of the trial has been excellent:
Australians angered by the 20-year sentence handed down to Schapelle Corby by an Indonesian court yesterday have threatened to boycott our nearest neighbour.
Radio callers urged Australians to destroy Bali’s economy by turning it into a “ghost town”.
“Certainly never go to Bali again – I certainly won’t and I’ll be encouraging my friends and family not to,” one of many callers told Brisbane radio 973FM ...
From the front of the gallery, Corby’s parents and sister realised before her what the chief judge was saying and erupted with abuse and emotion. Caught in the middle, Corby swayed between distress, tears and hot anger.
Her mother Rosleigh Rose screamed at the judges: “You took the word of a liar, these judges will never sleep – Schapelle you will go home, we will bring you home.”
Indonesians outside court clapped the guilty verdict, prompting an outburst from Corby’s sister Mercedes.
I believe Corby is innocent. It seems likely to me that even if her defence had produced someone who admitted placing the drugs in her luggage, that evidence would have been rejected due to a failure to fingerprint Corby’s luggage after her arrest. It also seems unlikely that someone would instantly confess to ownership of the drugs, as Corby is alleged to have done, the moment the drugs were discovered. The remarkable coincidence of a baggage handler-assisted cocaine haul at Sydney airport on the same day Corby flew to Bali points to the possibility of her being ensnared in a drug delivery debacle.
Blog opinion is divided. Several on the right believe Corby to be guilty, while others think her innocent, as you’ll read in this comments thread. On the left, some support a Bali boycott, while others reject a boycott. Also from the left: “In the end, a good and respectful relationship between Australian and Indonesia is much more important than the fate of Schapelle Corby.”
That opinion isn’t shared here, where spelling lessons are required.
KNOWLEDGE ABUSED
Sydney Morning Herald headline:
US knew about abuse of Koran, papers show
Knew about abuse? Not exactly; the US knew about allegations of abuse. The SMH’s story is originally from the LA Times, which ran a more accurate headline:
Detainees told FBI of Koran desecration
Other newspapers that published the same or similar copy also avoided the SMH’s headline presumption. The Kansas City Star:
Prisoners alleged abuse in 2002, FBI says
The Chicago Tribune:
FBI told of alleged Koran abuse
The Detroit Free Press:
Prisoners alleged abuse in 2002, FBI says
But the SMH wasn’t entirely alone. Sister publication Al-Jazeera went with this:
FBI confirms Qur’an desecration
(By contributor Alan R.M. Jones)
APPROVED ‘DOZER URGED
Let’s hope Caterpillar bulldozers aren’t involved:
The Palestinian Authority plans to demolish Jewish settler houses in Gaza and replace them with high-rise apartment blocks to ease crowding, a minister said today ...
“If Israel does not destroy settlers’ homes, we will destroy them,” Housing and Public Works Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said.
Most Palestinian Cabinet members favoured demolition, Mr Shtayyeh said.
Use of a Fiat ‘dozer should satisfy anti-Cat activists.
(Via reader Daniel L.)
TELLING IT LIKE IT IS
Who do you suppose was the first person who claimed to “tell it like it is”? I’m betting it was someone in a 1951 CIA hallucinogen-testing program (“subject claims to possess unique insight; subsequently consumes laboratory cat and throws self out of window”). Margo Kingston is the most recent:
Telling it like it is isn’t done in the American mainstream now. It’s too risky. It’s the same in Australia. If you have a go telling it bluntly, and with moral force, you’re condemned as a Howard Hater by the media’s dominant band of Howard Lovers. And to be condemned as a Howard Hater means you’re, well, unAustralian.
So the greatest risk you face is being condemned as a Howard Hater? Some risk; Margo rejoices in the description: “I’m happy to be tagged a Howard-hater, because I am.”
I mean, democracy is about finding a school to vote at every three years, right? We did that, the people have spoken, and the minority who didn’t want this government have to shut up or leave Australia, right? Otherwise they’re anti-democratic.
How anti-democratic is it to proclaim that democracy is dead if a certain party wins?
I’ve copped these arguments constantly on Webdiary since the October 2004 election. Many Australians seem to have forgotten what democracy means, or never worked it out in the first place.
Margo Kingston—who once warned that “there could be a cell in Sydney planning a terriers act in Italy”—claims to be smarter than many Australians.
It’s us versus them stuff, and the “us”, it seems, doesn’t seem to notice that their ranks are getting smaller by the day.
Soon they’ll be the “u”.
Tampa. To me, that was the event which saw Australians accept that it was okay for our government to treat some human beings as less than human.
How, exactly?
Let’s tell it like it is, shall we? Australia has its own “disappeared”, and its own “disappear them squad”.
Which we know about due to Cornelia Rau and Vivian Alvarez. Who haven’t disappeared—in fact, they’ve re-appeared. We have our own re-appear them squad!
But, perhaps, the government has gone too far this time. There is a prima facie case of terrible abuse of power here. Yet there would be no inquiry, no commissioner with legal powers to get to the truth and bring any perpetrators of crimes before the courts. There would instead be a cosy closed-door investigation by a former police officer relying on the cooperation of those in the frame for possible crimes, criminal negligence, and just plain negligence.
This up-yours response and the abandonment of any pretence that Australian citizens had the right to know what the government did to fellow citizens was too much even for a media cowered by threats and intimidation (the ABC) or whose commercial interests directed pro-Howard coverage (News Limited).
Speaking of a media “cowed by threats and intimidation”, Margo has some explaining to do. More on this later.
When Vanstone refused to give any details of who, when, how and why an Australian citizen was deported, the media did the job, and is still doing it. Webdiary began “a people’s inquiry” to help get the truth.
Any updates on the “people’s inquiry”? Have we reached the “people’s sentencing” yet?
Australian citizenship doesn’t matter much to this government. Unlike just about every other nation whose citizens were incarcerated and tortured in Guantanamo Bay, we’ve let the Americans do what they will with Hicks and Habib. Until the public screamed too loud, it was also happy for Corby to be thrown to the wolves for the sake of friendly relations with Indonesia.
“First time I’ve ever heard a Leftist accusing the Fascist Howard Junta of putting too little emphasis on Australian citizenship as a factor in one’s legal protection by the Commonwealth,” writes reader Tom R.
The “them” is getting bigger every day. First they came for the interlopers, then they came for the undesirables, then they came for the mentally ill, then they came for ...
Margo? Margo, are you still there? MARGO?
So let’s tell it like it is. Let’s feel proud to do so, and let’s see the vitriol rained down on us for what it is, the scream of the fascists and their yes people now dominating the “governance” of this nation.
Margo maintains her political correctness even when denouncing us fascists. “Yes people”?
No more pussyfooting around with these people, okay?
Whatever you say, Great Leader. Please don’t drag me before the “people’s inquiry”.
(This column ran in The Northern Rivers Echo, where Margo is temporarily replacing Mungo McCallum. Who’s next? Murgo? Mingo? Mongo?)
Thursday, May 26, 2005
CORBY TRIAL
It’s not looking good for Schapelle Corby:
The chief judge in the Schapelle Corby case has said it is “true” Corby admitted a bag containing 4.1 kilograms of marijuana was hers, according to a court translator.
Judge Linton Sirait has begun his summing up to a courtroom packed with media, family and onlookers.
Corby, 27, is answering three charges. She faces the death penalty if convicted of importing a narcotic, a maximum of life imprisonment for transiting a drug, and a maximum of 10 years’ jail for possession.
Live updates here.
UPDATE. Corby’s sentence: 20 years.
UPDATE II. Age readers suggest a Bali boycott, among other reactions.
UPDATE III. At the News forum: “This case brings an interesting incident to mind. My girlfriend’s cousin from California was detained by customs at Sydney Airport on New Years’ Eve after finding cannabis in her luggage. After being detained for several hours she was let off with a warning and allowed to enter the country. Apparently the incident was not recorded against her passport. Interesting times ...”
UPDATE IV. Courtroom scenes.
UPDATE V. This is weird: “Both the defence and prosecution teams in the Schapelle Corby case say they will appeal her 20-year sentence.”
UPDATE VI. “Schapelle Corby has been found guilty by a Bali court of importing a narcotic into Indonesia, sentenced to 20 years in jail and fined $13,875.”
UPDATE VII. “Schapelle Corby’s Indonesian lawyer said she did not understand why the judges in the case rejected all the evidence presented in her defence.”
UPDATE VIII. “None of the three judges presiding over Schapelle Corby’s trial has ever found a defendant innocent … ”
GUILT OBVIOUS
The ABC’s Peter Lloyd meets some Schapelle Corby supporters in Bali, and sets them straight about Corby’s guilt:
These visitors represent the sharp end of public opinion, which has overwhelming faith in Schapelle Corby’s innocence, regardless of the prima facie evidence of her guilt and the utter failure of her defence team to prove assertions that she was set up.
Let her face the firing squad, then. Lloyd next mocks the those who believe the “attractive doe-eyed woman often described as a former beauty student is the innocent victim of a mysterious drug smuggling network and a corrupt legal system.” So cynical! Yet Lloyd was far more forgiving of Malaysia’s Mahathir Mohamad after the then-prime minister lashed out against world-controlling Jews:
This racist tirade was mildly characterised by ABC radio’s Peter Cave and Peter Lloyd as “calling on the world’s Muslim community to unite and take a lesson on survival from the Jews” and “to in some ways emulate their response to oppression”.
Lloyd also has special gifts that allow him to predict events, such as when he reported from a US media centre in Iraq prior to any press conference:
These media briefings will be selective, self-serving and at times perhaps, even worse … In the last Gulf War the truths, half-truths and what some say were downright fibs were presented from the podium by ‘Storming’ Norman Schwartzkopf. This time around the Americans are going for a different, arguably more devious approach.
Selective, self-serving, devious ... he’s just described the ABC.
BAD NEWS IN IRAQ - FOR ZARQAWI
Certain folks don’t approve of Arthur Chrenkoff’s dissenting views on Iraq. J.F. Beck rounds ‘em up. Meanwhile, in response to the pray for al-Zarqawi campaign, Chrenkoff has launched a campaign of his own:
Please feel free to write in your “get caught” or “get [anything else]” wishes for Al Qaeda’s Number 1 in Iraq.
And let’s show jihadis we can run a successful “million prayers of capture campaign.”
Some wishes have already been granted:
Reports that Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been wounded are true, Iraq’s interior minister told a news conference on Thursday.
My own personal lung prayer has also been answered:
Insurgents said Wednesday in interviews and statements on the Internet that the leader of the group al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab Zarqawi, was struggling with a gunshot wound to the lung.
It only hurts when he breathes.