It’s a dog’s life
Some dogs just shouldn’t touch alcohol.
Author: maxymax
Palestinians buckle
I don’t know what the rate of pay or conditions of service are for Israeli soldiers but morale must be pretty high with the government’s attitude to the kidnapping of one Corporal Gilad Shalit.
Mobilize!
Palestinian militant sources claimed last night that they were close to reaching an agreement in negotiations over the release of an Israeli soldier. I detect a bit of a spin in that statement; I imagine the Palestinians are thinking;
Uh uh!. What’ll we do now? I know, lets release the Corporal while we still have the ability to make decisions.
Yesterday the three groups holding Shalit said they would free him if Israel released 1,000 Palestinian women, children and humanitarian cases from prison but today they are just going to release him on a future trading/release sort of deal.
I wonder if this had any impact on their thought process.
The news came as an Israeli helicopter gunship fired a missile at the Gaza City office of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.I realize the situation is about more than just Corporal Shalit’s freedom but the outcome will include his repatriation and that’s heady stuff for a corporal. I’m slightly peeved to consider that when I was a corporal I couldn’t begin to imagine any circumstances that would arise wherebye the majority of the ADF would have deployed to save my single solitary arse should I have been taken prisoner. More like “We taught him not to get separated….divide up his Playboy magazines…pack his other gear in a kitbag and Oh, Lcpl Smith, your now a corporal”.
Only in NZ
Reminiscent of a scene from the movie Blazing Saddles a Kiwi holds police at bay with a knife to his own throat.
Stun grenades and shotguns were used to subdue a man holding a knife to his own throat in a tense armed stand-off in Auckland yesterday. More than 20 armed police stormed a two-storey home in the beachside suburb of Kohimarama after a three-hour seige, which ended when the man surrendered.If the guy was hit by a stun grenade then ‘surrender’ isn’t the word I’d use….maybe ‘just sat there in a daze and allowed himself to be arrested’ could be closer. A 26-year-old man has been arrested and charged with breaching a protection order and will appear in Auckland District Court tomorrow.
Australia to help Thailand fight terror
Senator Vanstone has announced that Australia will help Thailand with new counter-terrorism and identity fraud measures and said cooperation between Australia and Thailand was important for the border protection of both nations because it would reduce the opportunity for terrorists to enter either country.
Senator Vanstone also announced, during her tour of the Suvarnabhumi Airport, Bangkok’s new airport, increased levels of training cooperation to assist Thai documentation examiners.
Good. I’ll be transitting through Bangkok in September on the way to Cambodia and would like to feel secure enough to have a night on the town re-visiting old haunts from my time there in the 70s.
Thanks, Amanda.
Does anyone know if the Jazz Bar in Patpong is still trading?
Treason by any other name..
WASHINGTON: President George W.Bush has branded the US news media “disgraceful” for disclosing a secret government program to monitor international finances and track terrorist funding.
I’m definitely with George here but then I’m old fashioned enough to think that aiding and abetting the enemy in war time is treason and perpetrators of such acts should be at least incarcerated for the duration. Like Hicks. Some Democrats have criticised the program as another step in an aggressive Bush administration expansion of executive-branch powers. But US officials claim its database has provided valuable information about ties between suspected terrorists and groups financing them. And a result closer to home;The New York Times reported on Friday that the US Government had secretly monitored thousands of international banking transactions since the attacks on New York and Washington in order to track suspected terrorists.
The newspaper refused government requests not to publish the story, prompting other major media to follow with their own reports.
It has also reportedly led to the capture of al-Qa’ida operative Riduan Isamuddin Hambali, believed to have planned the 2002 bombings in Bali.The Left will still argue argue against it even though the programme brought results; on the basis that anything that puts Bush in a bad light must be supported.
How do Muslims worldwide think?
Daniel Pipes reports on the dismaying results of a world-wide poll on Muslim attitudes to the west.
A proclivity to conspiracy theories: In not one Muslim population polled does a majority believe that Arabs carried out the attacks of September 11, 2001, on America. The proportions range from a mere 15% in Pakistan holding Arabs responsible, to 48% among French Muslims. …….In other words, in every one of these 10 Muslim communities, a majority views September 11 as a hoax perpetrated by the American government, Israel, or some other agency.Conspiracy theories also pertain to larger topics.
Asked, “What is most responsible for Muslim nations’ lack of prosperity?” between 14% (in Pakistan) and 43% (in Jordan) blame the policies of America and other Western states, as opposed to indigenous problems, such as a lack of democracy or education, or the presence of corruption or radical Islam.Overall, the Pew survey sends an undeniable message of crisis from one end to the other of the Muslim world. I see no mention of polling done in Australia and wonder what the outcome would be. I’m not optimistic as it will most probably take another generation of Australian education to bring some of the locals out of the 12th century. Read Daniels take on the poll and the original Pew Poll report here. The Pew Report is a .pdf but worth the read.
Socceroos beaten
I’m less than happy with soccer – we play well for 89.5 minutes and we loose because an Italian fell over and got a free kick for his dramatics. They are clearly better at the “fall over and appeal for a penalty” tactic than we are.
I’m definitely over soccer.
A two dog day
A cold windy day in Brisbane and the dogs know what to do…. snuggle up below the deck level to keep out of the wind. The black lab is a year old now and has settled into a routine of chewing my sandals, track shoes and deck shoes while the old golden retriever sleeps away the day.
At least they are ornamental features for the pool area and the black lab does takes her role as watchdog seriously.
At least they are ornamental features for the pool area and the black lab does takes her role as watchdog seriously. Iraq road rules: kill or be killed
Patrick Walters, National security editor for the Australian has written a particularly balanced report on blue-on-blue in Iraq.
Go read and be informed.
Go read and be informed. Pte Kovco II
More from the Kovco Inquiry
Jake Kovco’s mates have a preminition about the body mix up
In all my days I have never heard of a body mixup other than on this one occassion. I wonder what historical precedence these guys used to express the concern that there might be a problem. It sounds like invention after the fact to me but then maybe it’s a known in-theatre problem. It’s hard to be sure from my desk in Brisbane. In another article Soldier 17, a 23-year-old private figures it was an accidentAn unnamed soldier, codenamed Soldier 14, told the inquiry into Pte Kovco’s death and bungled repatriation that a group of fellow soldiers had tried to prevent any mix-up involving his body.
“We were looking after Jake and we wanted to make sure the job was done,” Soldier 14 told the inquiry in Sydney, via a video link from Baghdad. “Our job was to make sure he got home and I guess we wanted to make sure that it was him that went home and that’s why we, as a group, had talked about that. “One member then put forward that statement to Soldier 2, to make sure that it was him (Pte Kovco) because stranger things have happened.”
….yesterday told the inquiry he believed Pte Kovco could have been shot in the head while joking around with his two roommates.And this………
Soldier 14 told the Sydney inquiry that Pte Kovco walked several metres in front of him as they were leaving their posts and then held a door closed on him at a weapons checkpoint so he could not get through. At the time, Soldier 14 said he decided he would clear his own rifle because he did not have Pte Kovco to follow the so-called “buddy system” of checking each other’s weapons when their duty finished. Soldier 14 said Pte Kovco had been carrying a rifle plus his 9mm Browning pistol on duty that day.……raises the question; what were the NCO’s and Officers doing while all this horseplay was going on. The so called “Buddy System” aside, where soldiers check that each others weapons are cleared, surely the Corporal Section Commander has a responsibility to at least ensure this happens. The Inquiry now enters a phase of reviewing classified evidence in camera and fair enough too. It’s bad enough we have to wash our dirty linen in public without journalists and unqualified commentators debating operational security matters involving our troops in Iraq.
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