Public Address - Heat (Home)

Dirty Doggies | Feb 26, 2004 17:04

Well, it's all on out west with the Bulldogs league club heavily into their scandal du jour. This time it's an alleged gang rape. Apparently there was a sex scandal cover up last year as well. Last night on TV, CEO Steve Mortimer was asked if there was a culture of abuse within the Bulldogs. He was somewhat evasive in his answer.

The Sydney Morning Herald, however, reports crisis management Bulldogs style:

Just minutes before Mr Mortimer spoke at Belmore Oval yesterday, one of the club's players at a training session was heard abusing photographers from the players' tunnel. The player allegedly encouraged his teammates to "pull our dicks out and come all over them".

Another player was seen urinating on the field.

Question answered, it seems.

And spare a thought for us young (ish) boomers. It looks like we'll never get to retire.

According to Treasurer Peter Costello:

Older workers are skilled, disciplined and reliable, and their levels of sick leave declined as they aged. The days of throwing them on the scrap heap at 40 or 50 were over, and employers had to be re-educated to this end, he said.

There's going to be no such thing as full-time retirement.

So now settling into a little seaside number and going fishing every day is "being thrown on the scrap-heap." Anybody sense they're being manipulated here?

The generational change thing is such a huge issue it's hard to get your head around, but I was talking to someone the other day who pointed out that it is now looming very large. Here 2008 is a key year. It's the year when the peak of the boomer generation turns 55 and when the workforce, theoretically at least, slowly goes into net decline. Usually you find winners and losers in this kind of thing but the only winners here, as far as I can see, are people who have already bolted for the scrap-heap.

The implications for business are equally great. This is a major disruptive force that will make and break many a business strategy – and, as always, create some huge opportunities.

I mentioned Lost in Translation a week or two back. The film continues to be caned as racist in some quarters, which is just total nonsense.

This is Japan seen through the eyes of two reluctant tourists. Neither main character particularly wants to be there and they find it odd and dislocating. I spent a week there and found it odd and dislocating too (and charming and gorgeous and interesting as well). Yes the Japanese people in the film are a bit like caricatures, but they are pretty damn accurate caricatures too. Remember the film isn't really about them, it's about the two central characters and the Japanese are the background.

I was told a few years ago the Maori extras on The Piano referred to themselves as the "blackground". It's pretty much the same thing. Background characters rarely appear "in the round".

Now, it's time to report on the death of a meme. This is a favourite of the likes of NZPundits and Mark Steyn: Saddam fed people into a plastic shredder, sometimes feet first. Conservative organ The Spectator questions this one, showing the shredder has now gone the way of all those WMDs.

The story came originally from a group called Indict. Brendan O'Neill reports it was uncorroborated

This is all that Indict had to go on — uncorroborated and quite amazing claims made by a single person from northern Iraq. When I suggest that this does not constitute proof of the existence of a human shredder, [Labour MP Ann] Clwyd responds: 'We heard a victim say it; who are you to say that chap is a liar?' Yet to call for witness statements to be corroborated before being turned into the subject of national newspaper articles is not to accuse the witnesses involved of being liars; it is to follow good practice in the collection of evidence, particularly evidence with which Indict hopes to 'seek indictments by national prosecutors' against former Baathists.

So is the shredder propaganda, pure and simple, just like the bayoneted babies of Belgium in 1914? Only time will tell. But the naïve right (read Gordo and Craig), who parsed everything Andrew Gilligan ever wrote so closely, lapped it up and passed it on.

Another supposed source was an anti-war activist, Kenneth Joseph, maybe or maybe not a trainee pastor with the Assyrian Church of the East, who the Pundit boys reference favourably.

"I know who I'm listening to. Just don't bother waiting for the usual suspects to get off message" wrote Craig Ranapia in March 2003.

Oh dear. Joseph's testimony has since been discredited and his supposed 14 hours of taped interviews with Iraqis has gone west. Searching under his name in Google turns up some interesting exchanges too. Try it. Anyway, this from The Spectator:

Even Johann Hari, a pro-war columnist on the Independent who wrote a sycophantic account of Joseph's conversion, has since declared that Joseph 'was probably a bullshitter'.

Clwyd insists that corroboration of the shredder story came three months after her first Times article, when she was shown a dossier by a reporter from Fox TV. On 18 June, Clwyd wrote a second article for the Times, describing a 'chillingly meticulous record book' from Saddam's notorious Abu Ghraib prison, which described one of the methods of execution as 'mincing'. Can she say who compiled this book? 'No, I can't.' Where is it now? 'I don't know.' What was the name of the Fox reporter who showed it to her? 'I have no idea.' Did Clwyd read the entire thing? 'No! It was in Arabic! I only saw it briefly.' Curiously, there is no mention of the book or of 'mincing' as a method of execution on the Fox News website. Robert Zimmerman, a spokesman for Fox News in New York, tells me: 'That story does not ring a bell with our foreign editor here, and it is something you expect would ring a bell. It sounds like something we would have gone to town with, in terms of promotion and PR.'

And finally it looks like George Bush has gone soft on Cuba, the big pussy.

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Richard Neville and Shua'le | Feb 19, 2004 17:32

NZPundit's Craig Ranapia and WhackingDay have decided Richard Neville is trying to pull one over on us. On his web site he posted a picture of a maimed Israeli girl instead of maimed Iraqis in relation to his "Netizens of the World…" speech, which we republished here two days ago.

Clearly the great left wing conspiracy is at work. Call out the black helicopters etc etc blah blah bloody blah.

Presumably since Neville got the picture wrong Shua'le (aka al Shoala) never happened. That must be the case because these guys would rather talk about an incorrect picture than the incident itself. They never seem to address such incidents, except to try and explain them away and make sure no blame attaches to the US or Israel. I still haven't seen anything from NZPundit about the recent evidence on the Israeli missile attack at the Nuseirat refugee camp.

You were quick enough with your "Gotcha" on that occasion, Gordon.

Anyway, Richard Neville explains his mistake:

Hi Rob, For your information, typing Baghdad Explosions into Google produced the image which I first put on the site ... in too much of a hurry. The following morning I received an email pointing out that the scene depicted an Israeli girl who was injured in the bombing of a bus carrying Jewish families home from prayer at the the Western Wall in August of 2003. More than 20 were killed, and dozens were injured. I immediately changed the pic on the site and apologised to the person who drew my attention to the error. Because some have assumed malice behind my mistake, or other sinister intentions, an explanation has been posted today. It is an error I regret.

I've checked. The picture does show up on such a Google image search.

The US would like the world to think Shua'le never happened. They have apparently never investigated the incident as they promised to at the time.

U.S. Central Command said at the time that it was investigating, but spokesman Capt. John Morgan now says no inquiry was conducted. Centcom never confirmed or denied firing the missile.

On April 1, Iraqi officials and witnesses said, U.S. Apache helicopters attacked a neighborhood in the central town of Hillah, killing 33 civilians. The bodies were shown to reporters at a hospital there. Central Command said no Apaches were involved.

Queried again this week about the al-Shoala and Hillah attacks, Central Command said it had no information to add.

Surely "Nyah nyah nyah he got the wrong picture" is a somewhat inadequate response to all this.

Yes, yes, I know. If it happened in the Herald it would be an issue. But in the blogosphere?

Anyway for those out there who prefer their dead kids Iraqi rather than Israeli, here are some snaps from Shua'le.

They look pretty much alike, really, dead and maimed kids.

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Girlieville | Feb 18, 2004 12:52

I confess I have been remiss in my coverage of all things Girlie. Some people have noticed and made polite enquiries. To a considerable degree my negligence has been caused by a certain teenie inertia in the Girlie department; it's hard to write about someone who spends 14 hours a day in bed.

She has given me a couple of good tellings-off recently. Last night, for instance, when I arrived home, a little jolly, at around nine and started cooking dinner (smoked salmon, ricotta, cherry tomato and avocado pizza, dears), she seemed very upset to be starting dinner at 10 pm.

A word of explanation: with Lost in Translation out, there is a small window of opportunity for old guys to hang around in bars and actually look cool. I, for one, am making the most of it.

Anyway, back to our late dinner:

"People don't have dinner at 10 o'clock, Dad! It's not normal!"

People schmeeple.

One aspect of the Girlie's character is that she is a bit of a conformist. Ever since she was wee she had a real respect for authority and a dislike of getting on the wrong side of it, unlike her big sister. But I don't qualify as "authority" any more. I'm just that guy that buys the groceries, cooks the dinner, gives her pocket money and worries about his weight.

Last weekend she went to a party and I found myself in a familiar conundrum: whether to supply her with booze or not. This one really gets me. You see if I supply the booze and she gets into some sort of trouble as a result, I'm responsible. However, I know she's going to buy some anyway, and at 17 that's pretty easy. Also, seeing as I hit the grog at 16 it seems a bit hypocritical to disapprove. So I've drawn the line at the top shelf.

Having armed her with a six pack, I dropped her off and picked her up afterwards; from down the road where her friends couldn't see me, of course.

Speaking of hypocritical, this from our "one rule for us and one for the towel-heads department": did anyone notice US administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer's promise to veto any place for Islam as "a source of inspiration for the law" in the new Iraqi constitution? Personally I think that's a great idea, even though he has a snowball's chance of sustaining it long past the coming US withdrawal and civil war. Such separation of church and state is, of course, an honoured principal of the US Constitution, but it's one Bremer's boss doesn't like very much and is doing his very best to undermine. George Junior wants to, in his own words, ensure religion "will have an honored place in our plans and laws," which, if you think about it, goes somewhat further than the Iraqi wording. For more, check the Project for the Old American Century's "fundies" page.

Let's not forget the words of one truly great Republican, Thomas Jefferson: "The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and engrafted into the machine of government, have been a formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man."

Of course it's great to see the Bush administration has seen the light and is now supporting affirmative action programmes to boost disadvantaged groups.

Some sort of "Road to Damascus" experience, maybe?

Here in New South Wales there are crisis everywhere: the hospitals are falling apart and people are dying as a result and the trains are groaning under industrial action when they're not flying off the rails. Bob Carr, our somewhat aloof and superior Labor premier, until now has always seemed consummately in control, but is starting to look as if he's lost it. He's been very quiet at a time when leadership is required.

At the state level he seems to be doing what Howard is doing nationally: imploding.

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Howard's way | Feb 13, 2004 02:05

You know how sometimes you are watching sports and a team thinks they've got a big enough lead that they can just play safe and see the game out for a win? I think the All Blacks have done that a few times but it's even more common in soccer: pack the defence and let them attack.

That seems to be the way John Howard is planning to handle Mark Latham. The only problem is that in soccer at least the strategy never seems to work. Teams try and close the game down, but more often than not they pay with defeat.

And it's not like Howard has much of a lead any more. Some polls are already putting Latham in front.

Last night the government announced it would dismantle the extraordinarily generous super scheme that applies to MPs after Latham attacked it a few days ago. Why? According to Howard so that it doesn't become a "political football". Read that: "To get it off the table before the election."

What really happened? Well, Latham has just scored a big win, despite losing God knows how many thousands out of his own retirement income. He has an uncanny knack of finding stuff out of nowhere that really hurts the government.

Another example? Tonight I saw Darryl Williams speak at the Australian Internet Industry Association AGM dinner. Williams, as minister of technology, telecommunications and the arts is what you might call a safe pair of hands. Some say he's a bit of a nightwatchman, aiming to keep Labor's quicks under control and his stumps intact for the election. Since he took over from ABC-basher Richard Alston last year Williams has been totally invisible and unavailable for interviews.

His speech, to a crowd of 400 or so, was notable for the fact that those 400 seemed to carry on as if he wasn't there. The hubbub of conversation continued all the way through despite the odd "Ssshhhh!" from a young Liberal here and there.

It was very different when Oz magazine founder and self-styled stirrer Richard Neville spoke. His was an electrifying appearance covering the internet, Iraq, the military industrial complex and the sorry state of most modern mass media. I asked permission to reproduce his speech here as one of our guest speakers and Neville agreed, so with a bit of luck you'll see that in the next few days.

Anyway, the government's strategy seems to be to neutralize issues and keep the lid on any volatile sectors in the lead-up to the election. Their strategy is to bore their way back to power. It looks like a loser to me.

Okay so what about that free trade deal, huh?

Well, I'm not too big to admit I was wrong. Australia is about to embark on a new era of free trade with the US while New Zealand contracts a bad case of the Argentinian disease and withers into the third world.

Australia minus the sugar industry, that is. But sugar is pretty third-world anyway. Right? Florida, the federal election lynchpin, is a sugar state, you see, so you can't really have free trade in sugar. Oh and the beef farmers are going to have to wait eighteen years before quotas are dropped. In the meantime they have gained .17% of total US beef production.

Apart from that it's a really great deal, ushering in a new era of trade etc and establishing a shining precedents for the future. Did I mention the dairy farmers? Oh. The dairy farmers will partake of this new era in trade too. But tariffs will remain and so will quotas, though these will be increased

However, Aussie companies will now have access to the $US80 billion Federal procurement market. How about that! Okay, so apparently 80 other countries already have that status. So what? What's your point?

I guess in the end the devil is in the detail and we will just have to wait for the release of the final 500-page document. In the meantime, though, you might want to ask yourselves why it takes 500 pages to announce the arrival of free trade.

Just a thought.

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Spanish guns | Feb 02, 2004 23:39

John Howard thinks George Bush and Tony Blair should get the Nobel Peace Prize. And why not? The terrorist Yasser Arafat won one. War criminal Henry Kissinger won one. Adolf Hitler was nominated in 1938. Hell, I might go nominate Saddam!

Even more appropriately, Theodore Roosevelt, the man who by subterfuge and on extremely dodgy grounds took the US to war against Spain in 1898, also won one. That was the war that secured Guantanamo Bay for the US, to the great and ongoing humiliation of the Cuban people.

Teddy knew it would come in useful one day...

To deflect suggestions of imperialism, the US passed legislation to ensure it could not annex Cuba. The large black population of the island also made this course unpalatable. Under annexation these blacks could become US citizens. With that option closed, the US had to address the vexed problem of delivering independence.

The war was ostensibly waged in support of Cuban freedom, but with the Spanish evicted the US set about imposing humiliating limitations on the new country's independence. J.A. Sierra reports:

"The United States conditioned its approval of the constitution on the acceptance of a series of clauses that would preserve its upper hand in future dealings with 'independent' Cuba."

These "represented a permanent restriction upon Cuban self-determination. Cuba's constituent assembly modified the [US] terms … and presented [these] to the United States only to be turned down. The United States-imposed amendment was a tremendous humiliation to all Cubans, whose political life would be plagued by continual debates over the issue until its repeal in 1934. On June 12, 1901, Cuba ratified the amendment as a permanent addendum to the Cuban constitution of 1901 and the only alternative to permanent military occupation by the United States."

Such is the way of US imperialism; all substance, minimal appearance.

And here's a little known fact: the Castro government receives a rent cheque each year of about $US4,000 for Guantanamo Bay. It doesn't cash them.

That reminds me; we may as well nominate Castro for a Nobel prize as well.

Meanwhile in Iraq there are strange goings on in Samarra. And we've found the source of those rogue WMDs: Looks like Iraq wasn't the great nucular proliferation threat at all – it was Pakistan, with shipments continuing right up until late 2003.

As to Hutton, the wonderful Spectator can say it much better than I:

"Saddam turned out not to have … stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons, and certainly no capacity to launch them 'within 45 minutes'. These errors would have emerged anyway, in the course of the defeat of Saddam. What would never have emerged, had it not been for one enterprising reporter, was a series of other amazing facts about the production of this influential dossier…"

Ciao.

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