Schapelle: The washup

The Jakarta Post’s take on the Schapelle Corbys sentence here Long term commentator at Tim Dunlop’s site, Aussie Bob, has opened his own blog. His profile could be summarised as “I hate Howard and Downer with such a passion that my life’s writings are all aimed at blaming them for everything I perceive as wrong with the Australian society”. Visit for the experience and for confirmation as to why people of his poltical pursuasion have never successfully run any country anywhere, ever. There is a lot of weird rationale used but I guess it must make sense to Bob. Publius Pundit has a fairly balanced round up of opinion on the case and is worth reading for an non-Aussie take. You might like to read the comments at Tim Blair and at Tim Dunlop for opposing views. There seems to be some weird conspiracy theories around but it should liven up your sunday reading, sunday papers being what they are.

Shanahan’s slant on the news

Dennis Shanahan tends his weekly beat-up of the Liberal leadership fight that starts and ends with his columns but in another article stems the flood on anti-Indonesian feeling in Australia about Corby and the Bali Nine (and counting). Dennis also has an article on the ALP’s response to the budget claiming Stephen Smith claims five reasons for happiness in justifying Labours strange reaction to the budget but after having written the article he sat back and thought..now where can I insert a mention of the liberal leadership fight. He managed it;
Just a week after the most frazzled budget in the history of the Howard Government was finalised and bitter relations between John Howard and Costello were destined to overshadow the budget…
I’m just surprised that he didn’t slip in a ‘bitter relations’ line in the Bali piece. If you only read Dennis you could be forgiven for thinking there was a leadership split happening next week. He wishes.

Drug Bunnies

What are these people doing? Don’t they read the newspapers? You’d think even the thickest of druggies would stop taking drugs to Bali while Schapelle Corby is on trial. I am not going to let myself feel sorry for them when they come up for trial.

Free Needles for Drug Dealers

Redfern’s $50m heroin turnover
A senior police officer with the Redfern area command, Sergeant Paul Huxtable, in a submission obtained by The Australian, says drug use is so much the norm on The Block that six-year-old children mill around the needle exchange bus as it daily dispenses clean syringes by the hundreds.
But wait…there’s more.
One eight-year-old child had committed 31 criminal offences including sexual assault, he said.
Sergeant Huxtable went on to say;
… more than 1 million syringes were handed out in The Block under a government-funded needle exchange program in 2001. At the current price for heroin of $50 per street deal, “if the current syringe handout is consistent with 2001, we have an annual turnover of over $50 million tax free”, he said.
He admits the figures may be a bit course but it still points to the ‘Block’ problems being more drug associated than ‘race’
…The Block’s problems had “little to do with race and everything to do with pure old-fashioned human greed. It is about the protection of a lucrative heroin trade”. “The needle bus has been like a honey pot for drug addicts and dealers from all over Sydney looking for an area where drugs are tolerated,”
Great, isn’t it? We have a deadly drug killing our kids and filling prisons and in response the Government help the dealers. You’d think the evil bastards could afford their own syringes. If we are going to officially help the drug dealers why don’t Occupational Health and Safety insist they give the addicts free clean syringes. Years ago I was at a BBQ at Canberra and had drinks with a senior AFP Inspector. In giving him the benefit of my opinion, as one does after a few beers, I told him what the world needs is a war against drugs. He replied – We already have one. No, I countered, I mean a war like D Day. Bombers, tanks, napalm…. I always thought a good start would be a coordinated napalm mission targeting all the opium fields in Columbia, Turkey, Burma and particularly Afghanistan (a major cash crop for terrorists). Time and time again we have stats that indicate as the supply of heroin dries up so associated crime and overdose deaths fall. Pictures of ‘crispy critters’ in burnt out poppy fields would certainly slow down worker recruitment and heroin production. Still, as my left wing detractors would say, a simplistic answer to a complicated problem but I do like to distill problems down to their base elements. Supply and demand. Kill the supply and watch demand fall.
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