’Iraq, like Vietnam before it, has served to remind us that, like the war on communism, the war on terror is but a charade, a fear engendering escapade, designed to control populations and empower the elite, unleashing fear onto the citizenry while delivering enormous profit to the military-industrial complex. Using Arab men as bogeymen, hidden in the shadows, without faces, countries and, with the help of Hollywood and the corporate media, with a growing brutal reputation, dark skinned Muslims replaced white Soviet Reds as the new American enemy, the new cash cow granting the government and military industrial complex a new generation of destructive war from which to bleed the American taxpayer dry, providing misallocation of resources to the former and enormous profit to the latter.  

‘This special issue, published on-line and available to subscribers and non-subscribers, is a response to quite extraordinary and frightening measures and processes in Australian political life. In this issue we endeavor to bring you articles and comment by a wide range of writers on the Anti-Terrorism Bill (No. 2) 2005.  

As we write, a Senate Committee hears evidence on the impact of the Bill. Even this small amount of space for debate represents a victory over the Howard Government’s ominous attempts to close down opportunities for political comment and opposition.  

Whoops, another contract for Tenix... onya Reefeee...wonder how his second job out frm the Defence Ministry is going.  Maybe It's Time for Labor and the Democrats to match the current rounds of contracts to those of a couple of years back  (why didn't you mention the Kinaird Report Robert,? it was in your notes!).

‘Nobody but Americans celebrate Thanksgiving.  

It is reserved by history and the intent of “the founders

Published in today's Adelaide Advertiser, written in response to the front page story yesterday. 

[excerpt] 

Premier Mike Rann wants Parliament's Upper House abolished and will ask South Australians to bring about the greatest electoral system change in the state's history in a 2010 referendum.

Labor, frustrated by legislative delays and the watering down of new laws in the Legislative Council, will begin moves to get rid of it after the March 18 election that polls suggest it is likely to win. Mr Rann said yesterday there would then be four years for the issue to be debated.

On Monday of this week, Lateline’s Tony Jones hosted a report by journalist Tom Iggulden called Homegrown Terror Attack Likely: Expert. 

The “expert

As Sydney Airport announces a trial of equipment by U.K. company Qinetiq, a financial traill is revealed that runs from the most famous plane crash in history to the runways of New South Wales.

Qinetiq, the privatised arm of the UK Ministry of Defence, have, in a financial arrangement considered as ethically questionable, the international investment firm Carlyle.  Qinetiq's wholly owned-US subsidiary build the Talon War Robot being used by the US Army in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The firm has been engaged in South Australian trials of its Zephyr 3 Unmanned Air Vehicle.  It also has a 25 year evaluation contract with the UK's MoD worth approximately $A13 billion. (read at the end of here)
 

While Rumsfeld, Zoelleck, Hill and Downer were "doing lunch" in Adelaide last week, a friend of mine, just to see if he could, came out from the cafe in the adjoining building to the town hall into a laneway that he estimates would have been about fifteen feet from the hall's main dining room. 

Eventually one of the three hundred police parked out the back came and asked him what he was doing, laughed when told it all looked like "a policeman's picnic.

My friend had simply carried out the exercise to prove a point.  He was not searched or even asked for his details.

’In a previous article in "The Independent Australian", Issue 5, 2005, I compared the Eureka Stockade of 1854 and showed how the death of many of the miners at the Stockade at least led in the long run to democratic reforms. I also showed that now, in this year of 2005, the democratic gains of the Stockade, including such rights, which the Eurekans and their democratic heirs, expected would remain in place, such as trial by jury, innocent until proven guilty, the duty of the State to prove guilt, freedom for arbitrary arrest, and the accountability of government to the citizen, to mention but some of these rights, had now been destroyed. In a mood of Doublethink politicians still use the word "democratic", but it has become an empty, hypocritical symbol used to lull the sheeple into capitulation to the rise of globalism and the extinction of personal freedom. That move towards personal slavery, of which David Hicks, is only one symbol, is continuing to mount, and shows little sign of stopping. As a proponent of civil liberty, naturally I am concerned, as all citizens should be, unless they have been hypnotized into a mood of apathy. 

‘Surely the most telling indictment of the lack of fair trial inherent in the proposed military commission process is that no US citizen can be subject to it because of the US constitutional guarantee of a right to a fair trial. John Walker Lindh was whisked out of Cuba to face trial before US civilian courts, as was his right. The Bush Administration consistently rails against the International Criminal Court because it allegedly fails to meet the necessary standards of fair trial guaranteed to all US citizens.  

I found this on Utterly Boring today.  Some days I know the feeling.  Click here and enjoy.

 Thanks to ABC-891 Adelaide's David Bevan for mentioning this pic on air.. made my day!

‘President Bush planned to bomb Arab TV station al-Jazeera in friendly Qatar, a "Top Secret" No 10 memo reveals.  

But he was talked out of it at a White House summit by Tony Blair, who said it would provoke a worldwide backlash.  

A source said: "There's no doubt what Bush wanted, and no doubt Blair didn't want him to do it." Al-Jazeera is accused by the US of fuelling the Iraqi insurgency. The attack would have led to a massacre of innocents on the territory of a key ally, enraged the Middle East and almost certainly have sparked bloody retaliation.’  

Thanks to Rove MacManus (as President Bush) for the title.

Trevor isn't with us. Trevor is against us-
From out of his playground, Trevor has fenced us !
First thing in the morning is
when Trevor looks more scarier.
We will Win The War On Trevor,
and his faithful dog, his terrier.

Where is Trevor hiding?
No-one knows for certain.
Is he under the bed? Is he in the fridge?
Look- he's hiding behind the curtain !
Curse the day that Trevor's mother
let his father marry 'er!
We will Win the War on Trevor,
and his faithful dog, his terrier