Thursday 9th of January 2025

Blogs

plain sailing .....

Gitmo .....

‘The American Civil Liberties Union
has released documents that prove that top Department of Defense officials
endorsed interrogation methods at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp that the
FBI described as both abusive and illegal. 

“We now possess overwhelming
evidence that political and military leaders endorsed interrogation methods
that violate both domestic and international law,” said Jameel Jaffer, an
attorney with the ACLU. “It is entirely unacceptable that no senior official
has been held accountable.”’ 

a pretty lullaby .....

‘In the movie Flamingo Road, Joan Crawford
says to her husband "Why don’t you be honest with the people? Why don’t
you teach them to run their own state?" David Brian replies "Honey,
the honest men get eaten up. There’re too many other men waiting, watching,
probing for the soft spots, the graft. No, it’s better to be one of them." 

Waiting and watching is a useful
strategy. Wait and watch for a flock of ducks to fly over. Wait until the birds
are in your line of fire. Wait and watch until stocks reach an appropriate
price before buying. A burglar waits and watches until your car or home are
unoccupied. The state waits and watches for its chance too. 

buzzflash says .....

‘Okay so the UAE was one of only
three governments to recognize the Taliban, and the UAE royals have been pals
and houseguests of Osama bin Laden, and the gold that was used to finance the
9/11 attack was transfered through Dubai, and the government has a history of
giving a nod and a wink to terrorists "traveling" through the
country, and two of the 9/11 hijackers were from the UAE, and...

 

 

Oh, well, "1984" is
fiction no longer.  There is no truth in the Bushevik Administration. 

from behind a picket fence .....

‘A decade ago we had a significant succession of truly inspirational governors general; we looked to the ABC for excellence in broadcasting, to the universities to foster critical minds and to the CSIRO for scientific research of high integrity. 

If John Howard were a true conservative, he would have sustained those traditions. Instead, he has debauched them. Today we have an invisible governor-general, universities corrupted by their scrabbling for money, an underfunded ABC and a CSIRO where those who are genuinely concerned about global warming are expected to bite their tongues. 

appearance over substance .....

‘With no political opposition to speak of, Howard's
conquests have been in cultural life, with historiography thrown in. Siding
with an unchanging clique of far-right commentators, he has effectively stifled
debate about Australia's bloody colonial past while deriding the "black
armband theory of history": that is, the truth of a genocidal racism that
continues to devastate the Aboriginal people. His patriotic, or "put out
more flags," campaign is pure George W. Bush. Schools have been ordered to
erect flagpoles, and on "Australia Day," January 26th, which
"celebrates" the "settlement" of another people's country,
flags are distributed and often displayed with gormless aggression. 

background noise .....

UN investigator briefed Downer on AWB

Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer has confirmed he was
briefed on allegations against AWB a month before the UN oil-for-food inquiry
handed down its report.

It has been revealed Mr Downer met the UN oil-for-food
investigator Paul Volcker in New York in September last year.

saving david irving .....

’Governments, police services & prison authorities around the world
are reportedly "overjoyed" by the launch of a new prescription drug
that cures people who are suffering doubts about the veracity of the so-called
Jewish Holocaust.  

Shares in Israel-based Goy & Goy Pharmaceuticals Incorporated
rocketed to 89 US dollars following the long-awaited announcement of a miracle
cure for Holocaust Denial Syndrome (HDS).  

ham, spam & baloney .....

----- Original Message -----

From: JR
To: Lindsay, Peter (MP)
Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2006 8:22 PM
Subject: Spam .....

hell, by invitation only .....

From the ABC

PM backs 'bloody' tourism ad campaign
Prime Minister John Howard has praised the new advertising campaign by Tourism Australia, which features a cheeky tag-line. .. Bloody Hell...

 

on the road to kickbackee .....

 

from the ABC
Iraq wheat mission going without AWB
Australia's sole wheat exporter, AWB, has been dropped from the delegation heading to Iraq for crisis talks on wheat.
The ABC understands AWB chairman Brendan Stewart will not be accompanying Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile on the mission, which will be relabelled a government-to-government visit.

 

our missing moral leadership .....

‘A coalition of American churches
sharply denounced the US-led war in Iraq on Saturday, accusing Washington of
"raining down terror" and apologizing to other nations for "the
violence, degradation and poverty our nation has sown." 

The statement, issued at the
largest gathering of Christian churches in nearly a decade, also warned the
United States was pushing the world toward environmental catastrophe with a
"culture of consumption" and its refusal to back international
accords seeking to battle global warming. 

women of australia condemn anti-muslim comments of prime minister .....

The following statement was
prepared by a group of Australian women (community workers & academics) in
response to the latest anti-Muslim comments made by the Prime Minister.  

They are seeking support from
Australian women & women's organisations to publicly express condemnation
of such bigoted views & the ongoing race baiting of the Muslim Australian
community.

’We are a group of Australian women from diverse ethnic & cultural backgrounds
who stand together in condemning the Prime Minister for the peddling of his
Islamophobic views.

After ten years of playing the race card, the Prime Minister's inflammatory comments
about Muslim Australians this week represent a new low for community relations.
Last week, it was Federal Coalition member Danna Vale demonising Muslim women as
little more than breeders. This week the Prime Minister racially sledges the
Muslim community by singling them out as antagonistic to Australian culture.
Howard is unambiguous in his racialised message when he states: 

ghost trains .....

From
the ABC …..
 

An
Australian diplomat told the Government that Iraq wanted fees outside the
oil-for-food program.
 

No
AWB link in kickbacks cable: PM
 

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