this is champagne comedy, colonel...

Indeed it is, Graeme.

Laugh yourself silly :)

(via a commenter, lost somewhere in the jungle that is Friday Q and A, over at Fitsy's joint. Do yourself a favour!)

childish politics reaches a new low...

Well, this is mature! I thought Question Time was inane.

Are they even trying to argue policy anymore?

Meanwhile, check out the Young Ferals conference agenda. If I get the chance I'll get into a bit later, but for now just take a deep breath and try not to cry.

no military in space, say... um, ah, the... U.S.?

How funny is this;

WASHINGTON (AP) - Criticizing China's test of an anti-satellite weapon, the U.S. State Department said Friday "modern life as we know it" depends on the security of space-based technology.

State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said the administration raised concerns about the test with Chinese officials in Washington and in Beijing, making clear its opposition to "any militarization of space."

And their rationale for this amazing claim?;

"He said tests of the kind China carried out "produce extensive amounts of space debris, have the potential for disturbing or accidentally disrupting communication satellites or other kinds of space vehicles that are out there."

They can't seriously have forgotten, can they? Surely not! They've been at it since the Reagan days. In 2002 the U.S. renamed the BMDO to the MDA, having changed it to BMDO from SDIO in 1993.

As recently as 2002, the current Administration was planning "Son of Star Wars";

President Bush has ordered the setting up of a rudimentary missile defence system as early as 2004, underlining Washington's fear that the United States faces a real threat of intercontinental attack by rogue states.

As the Administration unveiled "Son of Star Wars" it asked Britain and other allies for their backing, apparently hoping to defray part of the cost, expected to be hundreds of billions of dollars over the coming decades.

The U.S. have also consistently vetoed U.N. treaties proposed by China and Russia aimed at banning the militarisation of space.

UPDATE: 23/1
Just re-read this and it probably sounds a little like I'm suggesting China are harmless. They're not. China are clearly bad news. I'm simply saying that blaming them entirely for starting a space arms race is a bit rich.

journalist was wrong... other journalists tell all!

Looks like Terry Lane has earnt the ire of the Herald Sun again! I'm sure he's deeply hurt by their lack of faith.

SUNDAY Age columnist Terry Lane has been caught out again quoting unreliable Internet sources, despite a similar "almighty stuff-up" last year leading him to offer his resignation.

It is the second time Lane has used spurious Internet claims to back anti-George W. Bush attacks in the paper – and this time to criticise Federal Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd.

Its good to see his boss standing up for him this time. Last time he pretty much hung him out to dry. But there are fighting words from The Sunday Age's editor this time;

"I think Terry Lane has made an assertion in an opinion piece," Mr Fray said. "It's a bit like me critiquing everything that Andrew Bolt has claimed. If we critiqued him like you're critiquing Terry, we'd have someone online from The Age calling you everyday.

Amen!

Still, one can only assume that if the Herald Sun is so strident in their criticism of just these two pieces from Terry, then they must agree wholeheartedly with his multitude of other writings for the Age. Like this one;

Sending in another 20,000 soldiers to search and destroy is not the way to liberate Iraq, writes Terry Lane.

Liberation goes like this. You see a country under occupation or ruled by a tyrant; you send in the army to drive the occupiers out or to depose the tyrant; then you bow to the natives' grateful applause and go home. Simple.

Or this one. Or this. Or this.

Stick with it, Terry. I still loves ya!

tamworth opens its heart... finally

So, Minister Vanstone is happy that Tamworth have opened their heart to a handful of Sudanese refugees. Woop-de-doo! She must be pissed off that it took such an effort;

Tamworth City Council voted this week to spurn an offer by the Department of Immigration to resettle the families for fear it could lead to a "Cronulla riots- type situation", Mayor James Treloar said.

Cr Treloar said that "of the 12 Sudanese people who live in Tamworth, eight have been before the courts for everything from dangerous driving to rape. These people don't respect authority … They come from countries where there are outbreaks of TB (tuberculosis) and polio. How can we trust the department to screen those things?"

The part I fail to understand is exactly what council had to agree to anyway. As far as I'm aware they have no part in housing funding, visa applications or migration issues generally. While councils can be helpful in terms of leadership in community acceptance, I wouldn't have thought any decision they made would be binding in this regard.

here we go... this was always on...

Okay, so the source is the Herald-Sun. Worse yet, the Sunday Herald-Sun. So I'll wait until I hear it from a reliable source like, I don't know, the three year old neice. But this one rings a bit true, don't you think.

THE Bracks Government is outraged at a leaked federal proposal to tax rainwater collected from roofs. The idea was revealed in a leaked email seen by the Sunday Herald Sun.

In the email, National Water Commission chief Ken Matthews says, "Legally, all water in Australia is vested in governments."

Mr Matthews' email continued: "Governments have not yet considered the capture of water from roofs in rainwater tanks to be of sufficient magnitude to warrant the issuing of specific entitlements to use this class of water.

Can't wait to see who's brave enough to trying taxing rain water!

end of bolta?

For the unitiated (you lucky buggers), Andrew Bolt is a regular opinion write in the News Ltd stable. He writes directly for the Herald-Sun in Melbourne, but I believe he is cross-posted to some of their regional papers and appears on TV and the like.

Right Wing Dead Beat.

Anyway, its beginning to look like we might've seen the last of him. As a columnist, at least. The last post in his blog is telling. That and the fact that everyone else seems to have come back from holidays, but still no sign of Andy.

Understandable, too. His positions of denial on global warming have become ridiculously stark over the last year. Recently more and more of the media and political class have come to accept the blindingly obvious. Toward the end of last year even John Howard and Rupert Murdoch have jumped on the bandwagon! Bolt truly is alone on this issue. His publication will, in coming months, take on a much greater environmental message than it ever has before. As a result, Bolt's position must be considered untenable.

Of Bolt's other two high end flogging horses, Islam and Water, he is on safe ground with one. The News Ltd stable is showing no signs of reducing it's vilification of our Muslim community.

But on Water, the ground has shifted under him, too. The Herald Sun is beginning to take something of a "campaign" approach to water saving. Bolt's simplistic and generally derided solution is to simply build another dam! Of course, this is thoroughly pointless. The fact remains that, at least for the forseeable future, rainfall patterns have changed. We must capture more water in the cities of Australia. And use less. A new dam will not help when it isn't raining!

I may be wrong, but I believe the capacity of our current dams when full are adequate for a few decades yet. If they were full! I'll stand corrected, if anyone wants to refute that.

So, where to for Bolta? He's a loyal company man. The editorship of the Hearld-Sun is up for grabs, with Peter Blunden being kicked upstairs. Perhaps it would be easier to hide from the humiliation of abandoning his long held views from the privacy of a different office!

We shall wait and see.

simple and effective...

Why isn't this thing mandatory in new homes? Or subject to a rebate of some kind?

Image shameslessly stolen from The Age

It's perfect in its simplicity. And absolutely correct in its core assumption that we lazy humans won't make any effort to save water that involves more than a seconds work.

The way this thing works is it allows you to flick off the water in the shower, while you're lathering up or whatever, then turn it back on at the same temperature setting. Rather than all that hassle of resetting the water when you turn it back on, you see.

Ingenious!

Oh. My. God.

Courtesy of Talking Points Memo who in turn have cited the New York Times, how about this little gem. An Assistant Secretary of Defense in the U.S., responsible for detainee affairs has added this delightful little opinion to the mix;

In his radio interview, Mr. Stimson said: “I think the news story that you’re really going to start seeing in the next couple of weeks is this: As a result of a FOIA request through a major news organization, somebody asked, ‘Who are the lawyers around this country representing detainees down there?’ and you know what, it’s shocking.” The F.O.I.A. reference was to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by Monica Crowley, a conservative syndicated talk show host, asking for the names of all the lawyers and law firms representing Guantánamo detainees in federal court cases.

Mr. Stimson, who is himself a lawyer, then went on to name more than a dozen of the firms listed on the 14-page report provided to Ms. Crowley, describing them as “the major law firms in this country.” He said, “I think, quite honestly, when corporate C.E.O.’s see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those C.E.O.’s are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms, and I think that is going to have major play in the next few weeks. And we want to watch that play out.”

How do you like them apples. A government official suggesting there should be economic consequences for businesses daring to actually consort with "the enemy". Heaven forbid they should actually care for the rule of law when they try achieve justice for the poor bastards stuck in that hellish legal blackhole.

I don't know the chapter and verse to say exactly what sections of their constitution or laws are being violated here. If anyone wants to add something about that in the comments, I'd love to hear it. That's just unbelieveable. David Kurtz, the guy who posted it at TPM finished with this. I can't add to it!

"Each of us will mark our own low point in the Bush Presidency. This is on my short list."

ruddock v nicholson?

I'm not a lawyer. I haven't read any documentation about the makeup of the new US military commissions, or even the old ones for that matter. I wouldn't know where to start looking and, really, even if I had I probably wouldn't have known understood much of what I was reading. Certainly I don't have the legal training or nuanced understanding of any relevant precedents to say with enough certainty that someone's claims are wrong.

All I've got is my gut. And an ability to assess for myself the quality of a source of information. I can take in to account perceived and actual conflicts of interest, perceived or actual truthfulness of previous statements, the consistency of someone's position in relation to a claim. (Is this opening drawn out enough yet?) In short, my BS detector is fully functional.

So when I read Philip Ruddock's op-ed piece in The Age the other day it seemed wrong. But, sadly, I didn't have the facts to just come out to call him a liar. But it seems Mr Alastair Nicholson has! Well, he doesn't call him a liar, of course. He's far too dignified a character for that. But his response piece yesterday was a wealth of information.

Mr Nicholson doesn't need to dip into any more dignity than he possesses in his little finger to surpass Mr Ruddock as a quality source of information. So, even though they're both only second hand sources of information and naturally, each comes with their own particular viewpoint, if its okay with you I'll accept the assessment of the former chief justice on this one!

it's not the same thing...

When will folks get it through their thick skulls that just because some who claim to be Muslims commit acts of terrorism, that not all Muslims are terrorists. Why is that this flawed logic, this blatant breakdown in deductive reasoning has taken become so widely accepted?

It just doesn't follow, people. It just doesn't follow!

Just because some men beat their wives, therefore all men are guilty of domestic abuse? No, that doesn't follow. A Doctor diddles a patient while they're under anaesthetic, therefore all doctors are sex offenders. Nope, no truth there, either. Yet somehow it is acceptable to claim that all Muslims are terror threats, simply because of the actions of some.

I think one of Islam's "PR" problems is they don't have a formal "command" structure like the Catholic Church does. There are respected local leaders who effectively take the title Immam (sic? excuse my ignorance) from no greater authority than the respect of their peers. As far as I'm aware there is no process of ordination or formal authority. Everything is decentralised.

This leaves them open to so-called "journalists" describing every nut who opens his mouth as a "muslim leader". Generally speaking, they're no such thing. The closest analogy to the Christian world would be the over-zealous young who frequently claim, say and do the oddest things in the name of their religion. These young zealots, though, are routinely ignored, written off by the media as over-exciteable youngsters. Yet somehow these same overexciteable youngsters of Muslim faith are deemed to speak for their entire religion.

Then you get nuts like Cr Paul Donovan, saying straight out that Islam is a violent religion. I heard him call in to 774 ABC yesterday morning. There is no transcript I can find, but apparently his views are well known. He claims that the Koran contains a number of "war chapters".

Well, newsflash, Councillor and all you other holier-than-thou types. There's a fair bit of violence in the Holy Bible, too. You don't get to pick and choose which parts of your own holy volume you choose to live by, while holding another religion to every archaic verse in their book. So, in honour of all those Christian types who want to hold Islam to every verse in the Koran, I introduce to you a new, regular segment:

"Ancient, Hideous Verses in The Bible".

Join me as we shed some light on some of the things that apparantly all Christians must agree with, since it appears in their sacred text!

it's amazing what you can find on youtube :)

I haven't managed to embed directly from youtube yet, but in the mean time please use the text link.

so it begins again...

I don't think there are many reading this who would know in real life. Maybe one or two. For the rest, suffice to say my politics are broadly centre left. Actually, the whole left-right thing does nothing for me. This guy has written a very thorough post on the subject here. But, so far as the left-right might be instructive, I am far more likely to vote for one of our veteran or emerging third parties than Liberal or Labor.

I have been involved with the Democrats over the years. I'm deeply ambivalent about it's future. On one hand, I'm concerned that too much time and effort is going to be spent trying to rescue a party that has essentially been navel gazing for quite a while now. I was disturbed to read in their national journal recently that they are again - or still, really - holding a consitutional review. FFS! Now?

On the other hand the role they've played is so vitally important. We've seen in this current term of parliament the kind of behaviour we haven't seen from a governing party in many years. Dominance of both houses must never be allowed. I had begun to become a little more relaxed with the prospect of the Greens becoming the balance of power party, but then I see stuff like this;

The Greens will campaign to stop the Bald Hills wind farm in the seat of Gippsland South in the lead-up to the Victorian election in November.

The newly appointed Greens candidate, Jackie Dargaville, will contest the seat held by the leader of the National Party, Peter Ryan.

Ms Dargaville lives at Fish Creek and lived on a farm at Bald Hills.

She says the Australian Greens support renewable energy over coal and nuclear electricity generation.

"But we do believe that renewables should be in the right place," she said.

"In coastal areas of great beauty and fairly high population and a lot of tourism potential we believe that's not necessarily the way to go unless that's what the community wants."

Oh, my giddy aunt. They're not ready.

They've done it before, of course. Polly, whose blog alerted me the item above, also reminded of an old favourite. This was hanging on that vacant block on the corner of Boronia Rd, Mountain Hwy and Wantirna Rd during the 2004 election. That's where the fast food joints have all just opened.


Ari has it blogged for posterity here. If I remember rightly I sent him that picture. In any event, I certainly took a photo. Actually, I stole the thing. Not sure where it ended up. I wish I'd kept it!

It's not that I don't trust the Greens specifically. But my very great fear has always been that their unity will crumble the first time their decision actually counts for anything more than shouting from the sidelines. I fear that the electorate will scream "oh shit, not them too" and swear off third parties for a generation. Examples like the above are evidence of maverick sorts and a lack of discipline that will not bode well if they get the balance of power.

In truth, I have no doubt that they would learn to handle the role. But I'm concerned that the electorate won't give them time.

There's a couple of other possibilities to step in to the breach. Family First have shot their bolt I think. Or maybe it's just with me. Their particular brand of populist policy might just be what the majority would be happy with. But I suspect the image of Steve Fielding making deals after being in the house about five minutes might raise flags with many. Check the site. They're calling him their 'Federal Parliamentary Leader'. That is champagne comedy, Colonel!

Then there is People Power. I'm a little bit interested in these guys. They seem to have picked up some intellectual capital and by the look of a couple of the names involved, they might have a few bob in kick to boot. Their existing published information is sound, although there are still many gaps. And they haven't answered my email yet after nearly a week, which is a slight concern.

Some of my persuasion might be concerned by a party that allows a board, albeit an elected one, to make it's decisions. May I say I've seen participatory democracy first hand and its not always that flash! Sometimes you just need to pick managers and let them do their job.

And so it begins. Another election cycle. State election almost upon us and then, for Victoria anyway, the federal campaign will be the focus of all attention.