Friday, April 28, 2006
WORKERS REMOVE CHAINS
In the tradition of last year’s casting out of the swampies, a superb example of counter activism from Queensland meatworkers:
Animal activists bit off more than they could chew this morning when they chained themselves to the killing area of an abattoir at Ipswich in south-east Queensland.
The 12 protesters got a fright when meatworkers took matters into their own hands and used angle grinders to cut the chains off the activists so they could get back to work.
I love this country.
Protester Angie Stephenson says it was terrifying.
“The workers, they were standing around cheering and whooping and yelling and making lewd comments so we had to call the police and tell them to get out here straight away,” she said.
They called police to protect them from people who were determined to get to work. This might be the happiest news story of the year—made even more so by the fact the protesters were attempting to disrupt something called the World Meat Congress.
(Via Evil Pundit)
Thursday, April 27, 2006
FISK AFLOAT
NRO’s John O’Sullivan on Robert Fisk’s hilarious Lateline performance:
A polite interviewer, asking straightforward (though increasingly astonished) questions, reveals Fisk to be a curious combination of poseur and fanatic. I would guess this would finish him except that nothing ever does. He is kept afloat by the self-deception of his readership.
Today’s Australian also takes a look at flailing Fisk, whose opinions, as expressed on Lateline, are beautifully condensed by reader K. Bowman:
Fisk’s points are all very simple. Zarqawi is just a figurehead whom we just are encouraged to loathe, who, at the end of the day, is not a person whom we need to worry about. Although he is a problem for all of us (Fisk, too). The West bestializes Zarqawi, although he is genuinely a bad guy (no doubt about it). It is wrong for us to paint the Middle East as a fight between good and evil, although Bin Laden and Zarqawi are monstrous. We created Zarqawi, although he created himself, and we helped, although he used to exist as a fantasy figure created by American propaganda. The media perpetuates these myths every time it blames Zarqawi, although he is to blame, and it would be absolutely wrong for reporters to ignore the things he is to blame for. Zarqawi’s existence supports American propaganda, but his continued existence is also a severe blow to American credibility.
You stupid Blairites all are just too dumb to understand nuance.
KOVCO CONFUSION
Two big questions over the death in Iraq of Australian soldier Private Jake Kovco: how exactly was he killed, and what led to his body being left in Kuwait while another’s—apparently that of a Bosnian soldier— was flown to Australia in his place? On the first question:
* Defence Minister Brendan Nelson’s description of Kovco’s accidental shooting first involved him handling his firearm, which was later revised:
In the immediate aftermath of the death, Dr Nelson said he had been advised Private Kovco was simply handling and maintaining his gun, as soldiers were required to do.
“For some unexplained reason, the firearm discharged, and a bullet unfortunately entered the soldier’s head, and several hours after the injury, despite receiving the best of medical care, he unfortunately passed away,” Dr Nelson said on Saturday.
On Thursday:
“He had returned to his room with two of his mates. They had been out on patrol,” [Nelson] told reporters.
“He was doing something other than handling his firearm and in the process of fiddling about with the other equipment he had, it would appear, that in some way he’s knocked his gun and it’s discharged. There is no suggestion it was anything other than an accident.”
* Kovco’s furious mother believes details of her son’s death have been concealed:
“My son is dead and there’s a big cover-up,’’ mum Judy Kovco told the Herald Sun yesterday ...
Judy Kovco refused to believe her son, an expert gunman, accidentally shot himself. “How does an intelligent boy that is so knowledgeable about guns shoot himself in the head?’‘
* Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston denies any cover-up.
On the second question:
* Brendan Nelson’s version of events seems straightforward enough:
His body was transferred by his mates, in respectful military tradition, onto the back of a C-130 Hercules, one of ours, which took him to Kuwait. He was transferred to a US military mortuary and then subsequently to a civilian mortuary.
He was at all times appropriately identified by the Australian Defence Force and the Australian Army. He was accompanied by one of the non-commissioned officers, one of the mates with whom he worked.
And it appears that the private company, which is involved in the repatriation of Australians who might sadly lose their lives overseas, something happened between him being identified in the civilian mortuary and his transfer then to the commercial flight back to Australia.
* That private company, Kenyon International Emergency Services, is massively experienced in this line of work:
From mass graves in the Balkans to hurricane Katrina, the Asian tsunami to September 11, Kenyon has been there to identify, collect and repatriate bodies.
The Federal Government uses Kenyon to send its deceased citizens home. It engaged the company after the first Bali bombings and in Thailand after the tsunami.
The Texas-based firm has attended more than 300 disasters and employs about 1000 body handlers.
* Nelson is now leery of private-sector involvement in repatriation:
I am very suspicious that we’ve been let down by a system which is actually beyond our direct control and if we are going to do something which is to ensure that this doesn’t happen to one of our defence personnel in the future, then I think we in Defence should take responsibility for bringing our people home and not rely on elements which involve commercial or the private sector.
* The mistake, with the advantage of hindsight, and at great remove, seems terribly obvious:
On Sunday, after a memorial service with full military honours, a flag-draped aluminium casket bearing the body of the 25-year-old private left Baghdad airport on board an RAAF C-130 bound for Kuwait ...
The casket loaded aboard the cargo hold of an Emirates aircraft for the short connecting flight to Dubai appears to have been a wooden one.
* Kenyon says it is not responsible for identifying the deceased—as distinct from identifying coffins, which appears to be the issue here:
The company said in a statement it was usual practice for a Kenyon agent to be involved in repatriation, but representatives from the Australian Defence Force and the Australian government, such as the local consul or embassy, would identify the deceased soldier.
“It is uncertain as to whether this process was followed in this instance as the facts are still being ascertained,” the company said.
“It should be noted that during the formal process Kenyon is not responsible for the role of identifying the body of the deceased.”
It should also be noted that the body had apparently already been identified. Brigadier Liz Cosson will lead an investigation into this mess; meanwhile, the Australian air force is currently working to return Jake Kovco to his devastated family, for whom Currency Lad has a heartfelt message.
DOOMSIDE
Following Wednesday’s debacle, yet another house invasion in the Sydney suburb of Doonside:
The pair attacked the man, aged in his 60s and the single occupant of the house, demanding money.
The man, who suffered minor injuries, ran to the backyard of the house where he grabbed a small axe which he swung at the pair, missing them.
Just as well. The oldtimer could’ve ended up facing murder charges.
DUCK!
They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you ban the sale of foie gras in restaurants. That’s the Chicago way!
GRAND EFFORT
Thanks to Bilious Young Fogey, J.F. Beck’s anti-malaria fundraiser is now pushing up towards $A1,000.
BURN THE EVIL
Iowahawk is hosting the First Annual Iowahawk Earth Week Virtual Cruise Night:
Send me a photos or photo links of your car, along with a brief description. My email contact is on the left sidebar. Since Iowahawk is all about conservation, I’ll host ‘em here to save the Earth’s precious bandwidth.
All rides are welcome, from rods to ricers, just so long as they destroy “the Demon Petrol that threatens our beloved Mother Earth.” Iowahawk’s own Coupe of Justice will feature, natch; my own buggy is so underpowered as to not qualify, at least until—if I follow Iowahawk’s drunken and threatening emails correctly—it is fitted with something like this.
HATEFUL RHETORIC OF UNITY
Two or three reasonably informed people discussing an issue might get somewhere. Ideas will develop; theories be refined. But dump ten or more people in a television studio and you’ll only rarely get beyond talking points and half-formed positional statements, which is why I declined SBS’s invitation to attend taping of Monday’s Insight program. Judging from the transcript, I may have made a mistake; the thing was a festival of correctional opportunities. Here’s guest David Marr addressing the show’s topic, What It Means To Be Australian:
I think there are things that mark us. And these days, and perhaps for a long time, kind of passivity, kind of putting up with what we’re given, a sort of bedrock understanding that somebody’s going to look after us, there’s somebody somewhere looking after us. And we just take what comes. We moan about authority but we don’t do much about it. We whinge but when was the last time an angry public stopped the Federal Government in this country doing anything? We just cop it.
The last time an angry public rose up was at Cronulla. Can’t imagine Dave was too pleased by the rioters’ rejection of passivity, and their evident refusal to “cop it.” You know, sometimes it seems as though Marr isn’t a great fan of Australia:
We do believe in mateship and we do believe in a fair go but not passionately. We’re not going to go out into the streets, we’re not going to passionately defend those virtues. I mean, a country that has just junked a century of understanding about labour law and how we deal with working men and women in this country, just junked it effortlessly, it’s not a country that believes deeply in fairness and mateship.
Partisan hack Dave then veered into a wild Anzac Day theory:
Lately there’s been a lot of marching up and down and a lot of drums being thudded around by the Government and, to some extent, also by the Opposition. I think Australians find this a bit embarrassing. But Gallipoli is now so far in the past, it’s an iconic Australian event, it puzzles us. And I think a great deal of the fascination of Gallipoli is it’s a riddle, it’s a hard riddle for this country to solve.
Embarrassing? Puzzling? A riddle? Record crowds, Dave. Marr next inspected treasurer Peter Costello’s views on the likelihood of Sharia law in Australia:
It’s dog-whistling politics. You know, this rhetoric from the Government at the moment about Aussie values - it’s talking white values and Christian values. It’s dog whistling and it’s disgusting and it is one of the most embarrassing things that’s happened in public life in the country for a very long time. This is wholly unnecessary. Costello’s rant the other night about the, you know, the dangers of sharia law in this country was a confected rant against Islam. And this is a country, Australia is a country terrified of Islam at the moment. Why? Well, it’s very good politics for the Government and that is a very sad thing.
More from confected David shortly. Now to an exchange between host Jenny Brockie and Hizb Ut-Tahrir representative Wassim Doureihi:
BROCKIE: Now, democracy, secularism, do you believe in those things?
DOUREIHI: Muslims do hold a unique set of values which will definitely, and I’ll say very unequivocally, which will go against notions of secularism and democracy because Islam puts the role of the creator as the pillar for both the personal and the political. But that is a belief. No-one is suggesting that the Muslims in this country are engaged in subversive activity to alter the political reality in this country. We exist, we’re under one set of laws and no-one is suggesting we are trying to implement sharia on this country. It’s the exact opposite that is occurring.
The exact opposite? That point could have been explored a little further. We now return to Dave, debating matters with One Nation’s Bob Vinnicombe, comedian Mikey Robins, and the Muslim Reference Group’s Mustapha Kara-Ali:
MARR: Let’s not romanticise Australia’s past. Australia is a paradise of a kind and it’s because people like you who spout this hateful rhetoric ... hateful rhetoric of unity. Why do you say like me? Have you studied no history? The calls for unity ...
BROCKIE: Hang on a second.
MARR: And I’m old enough to remember when this country was so bitterly divided between Catholics and Protestants, they couldn’t marry each other, they didn’t know each other.
VINNICOMBE: They didn’t blow each other up.
MARR: They didn’t speak to each other.
VINNICOMBE: They didn’t blow each other up.
ROBINS: Who’s blown who up, sorry?
VINNICOMBE: The Muslims murdered 88 Australians in Bali. They blew up 50 people in London. They killed 3,000 people on September 11.
BROCKIE: OK, Bob, you’ve made your point.
KARA-ALI: This gets to the heart of extremism. This is a form of extremism Australia can do without.
VINNICOMBE: I’m not an extremist, I’m the most moderate person here.
KARA-ALI: Muslims did not kill 88 people. Listen - no, no, this is very important. This is exactly, unfortunately, exactly the language that breeds extremists for Muslim youth. They listen to you and they go out very angry and frustrated.
Got that? Muslims did not kill 88 Australians in Bali, and Islamic extremism is caused by a One Nation bloke nobody has heard of. Let’s close with another line from Dave:
A tipping point would come if there were large numbers of people who were disobeying the law, or even a small group disobeying the law in a way which caused immense difficulties for the country. But thank God a terrorist hasn’t so much as exploded a firecracker in this country, yet we have laws now which are all set up as though this country were being rent by communal violence. It’s a strange thing going on and I think in some ways the law has tipped over a bit here.
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
UNBELIEVABLE
An awful mistake.
FISK INTERRUPTED
During a Robert Fisk rant about Western “bestialisation” of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Osama bin Laden, Ayatollah Khomeini, and Muammar Gaddafi, the ABC’s Tony Jones asks:
Robert Fisk, can I interrupt you there?
As J.F. Beck notes, from then on it’s all downhill for Fisk.
SNOW JOB
Fox News presenter Tony Snow is the new White House press secretary. Cue US-wide moonbat meltdown. Post reaction from the usual suspects in comments.
EARTH DAY TO LIVE AGAIN
Still doubt that Greenism is a religion? Check this apocalyptic envirosermon from Gaia monk Mike Weilbacher, who foretells that Earth Day will soon rise from the dead:
As climates collapse, water scarcity widens, more species vanish, and sea levels rise to where whole regions fret about drowning - Bangladesh, the Nile delta, the Maldives, Miami, the Jersey Shore - a global chorus demanding change will one day soon rise in a green tsunami of outrage. And Earth Day will become a centerpiece of the change ahead.
Testify, brother Mike!
As in 1970, when Earth Day catalyzed the comeback of bald eagles, the future Earth Day will regain its relevance in a shattered world to become the first secular holiday celebrated worldwide.
I’ll take that bet. Meanwhile, noisy Hollywood wife Laurie David’s bid to sign up one million “virtual marchers” has fallen gruesomely short, despite massive media support:
To date, David has not produced even 320,000 “marchers”.
Hit the link for much more on this from Ankle Biting Pundits. As it is, David has secured online signatures from just 0.106% of Americans; proportionally equal to a mere 21,300 Australians. From this tiny base, David imagines a nation-changing idiot-power movement will emerge:
As our numbers grow, we will use our collective voices to demand that governments, corporations, and politicians take the steps necessary to stop global warming.
Yeah. Good luck with that.
BAT USED
Intruder smashes his way into a Sydney house, fights with resident, loses. Outcome:
The resident has been charged with assault occasioning grievous bodily harm and will face Blacktown Local Court today.
UPDATE. Batter up in court:
A man claims an intruder he’s accused of bashing with a baseball bat yelled, “I’m going to kill you” as he broke down the door to his Sydney home.
Darryl Stoneham, 37, from Doonside, in Sydney’s west, faced Blacktown Local Court today charged with malicious assault inflicting grievous bodily harm.
The charge related to an alleged attack on David Kuusik, 38, who, according to police facts, broke into Stoneham’s home last night.
Outside the court:
Stoneham’s sister Kerry Davidson said the charges against her brother were “very unfair”.
“He (Mr Kuusik) smashed into his home, he did a home invasion, my brother protected himself, they should fix the laws up for innocent people who don’t deserve to be treated like this,” she told reporters.
As predicted by Nick in comments:
The two men are believed to have been known to each other before the incident.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
COLUMN FORGETS NAME
Mentioned in this week’s Continuing Crisis column for The Bulletin are Kim Beazley, Annette Hurley, Dana Wortley, Linda Kirk, Anne McEwen, Australia’s Commonwealth Games rowing squad, The Bangles, Jason Gillespie, Ian Chappell, Che, John Howard, BusHitler, David Hicks, Peter Beattie, and high-functioning autistics. Also in The Bulletin, Patrick Carlyon traces the evolution of the MCG:
More MCG pix here.
UPDATE. Mixed feelings on the new MCG. Nic writes:
I think the “G” has lost something in its development. I remember as a kid the feeling of being both in and beneath the old great southern stand, it had a feeling all of its own. I remember how high the seats in the nosebleed sections of the Ponsford stand seemed to go, the floggers and streamers, the days when people could display their own banners, the doughnut vans outside. Ahhhhhh, memories.
Nic’s right about the old Southern Stand, and his line about being “in and beneath” it is something that will resonate with anyone who was ever enveloped within the stand’s concretey goodness. But, having heard Patrick Carlyon talk about the new stands, I’m inclined towards Big Fish’s view:
Having been for the opening ceremony and some nights of Athletics for the Comm games after an abscence of a year or so, the new stand really makes the G feel smaller. Even though it is not smaller it feels more intimate. I think the new development is brillant.
ANZAC DAY AFTER
Eric Bogle’s And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda:
So now every April I sit on my porch
And I see the parade pass before me
I watch my old comrades, how proudly they march
Renewing their dreams and past glories
I see the old men, all bent, stiff and sore
The tired old heroes of a forgotten war
And the young people ask, What are they marching for?
And I ask myself the same question
Miserable old git. Record ANZAC Day crowds turned out yesterday in Melbourne, Canberra, across New Zealand, in Warrnambool, Bowral, Wollongong, Launceston, Orange, Ballarat, and most other cities and towns. Evil Pundit has a roundup of blog reaction.