Author: Kev

Retired infantry officer. Conservative by nature and politics; Happily married and father and grandfather of eight. Loves V8 powered Range Rovers, Golden Retrievers, good books and technology and think there should be open season on Greenies. Born in the mid forties and overdue for servicing but most parts still work.

Troubled times..Society stumbles

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QUEENSLAND Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy Minister Liddy Clark resigns as Minister in the aftermath of lies told by her staff and herself. Facts. Stick to facts says Andrew Bolt
Convicted brawler Murrandoo Yanner, a member of the taxpayer-funded ATSIC, tells the ABC if no police are punished, then “under the law, if you can’t get one policeman, you get another”, because “when someone’s killed, someone must be killed in return”. After hearing his threats, Queensland’s Minister for Aboriginal Policy, Liddy Clark, invites Yanner to fly with her on a taxpayer-funded flight to Palm Island to do some “healing” there.
We have a case of sub-human thugs attempting to murder police officers and one of their kind, a self styled verbose thug and criminal ‘leader’ incites murder and the state Labour Government Minister invites him to come help. She pays the air tickets, the Premier sensing a political storm says ‘No Way does the taxpayer fork out for these thugs’ but the Minister ignores him.
The CMC also found that Premier Peter Beattie knew in advance about the airfare funding decision that was the beginning of the end of Ms Clark’s ministerial career. But the CMC found the Premier’s office had also been deceived by Ms Clark and her staff, and had not been involved in covering up the so-called Airfare Affair.
What’s the agenda there? Are the staff just protecting their boss or do they have a agenda that refuses to accept attempted murder as a crime because the perpetrators are Aborigines? I’d like to know.
The CMC found Ms Clark’s media adviser Marie Low and senior policy adviser Bruce Picard were responsible for the lie. It recommended the pair be counselled by Premier’s Department director-general Leo Keliher.
Bloody Counselled! They should be sacked. Now! The problem isn’t just Queensland-based it exists all over the country. In Macquarrie Fields sub-humans riot and try to kill police. (There is no other way to describe intent when the act involves throwing a Molotov Cocktail at police officers) Darlene quotes an Ivory Tower occupant from Griffith Universty who says the problem won’t be solved by a rigid law and order stance but by
…police convincing the residents they were not the “enemy” by tackling the suburb’s social ills with other agencies
Bullshit. Those thugs need to be very aware that when they behave like ferals then the Police are most definitely their enemy. Back in Brisbane the Governmet allow clubs to stay open all night and act surprised when riots occur, samurais swords are used in fights, woman are raped and innocent passerbyes murdered. What’s there to be surprised about? We are just reaping what we have sown. The Government take police off the beat where they can best ‘police’ and put them out on income-shifts earning the government money in traffic fines. Less police on the beat and more drug sellers are active. The kids dope up on amphetamines that halve their IQs and inhibitions and double their aggression. The Police arrest some juveniles but Magistrates, so intent on social engineering, let them loose with a slap on the wrist. What happened?
General Musings

Red Badge of “Up Yours”

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Social engineers promise to turn me into a pariah by making me put a sticker on my V8 4WD (SUV). I’m proud of the fact that even my vehicle is politically incorrect and if I can get a sticker to prove it, I’d be ecstatic.
OWNERS of petrol-guzzling vehicles would be “shamed” with bright-red stickers on their cars under a scheme to be considered by the State Government.
“Shamed?” It’d be a badge of honour! Sunday, when professional journalists have a day off, produces weird copy, but this article is a beauty.
Under the plan, introduced in Britain this week, large vehicles that chew through fuel ? like four-wheel-drives and high performance vehicles ? display red stickers as a warning of their environmental unfriendliness.
The rating system is based on a car’s emissions of harmful carbon dioxide, the gas recognised as having a serious effect on the Earth’s climate.
I’d say my modern V8 emitts less CO2 than most Hippy chariots (VW Kombis) I’ve seen, what with modern technology and regular servicing my mechanic is very serious about emmissions and adjusts and retunes whenever necessary. However I still want a red sticker, but I want mine to say “The gas created by this 4WD has addled the brains of ten Greenies”. Something must be causing Bob Brown and his dreadlocked warriors to act like they do. And I want it now!
Politics

The IR war

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The opening rounds of Australia’s next war are currently being primed and loaded by the AWU Generals starting with the 2005 AWU National Conference held recently at the Gold Coast.
The four-day conference on the Gold Coast brings together nearly 200 AWU delegates representing 135,000 workers nationally. Guest speakers will include Queensland Premier Peter Beattie, ACTU Secretary Greg Combet, Federal Shadow Treasurer Wayne Swan, Shadow Industrial Relations Minister Stephen Smith and former Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke.
Big guns are coming in from overseas to lend socialist weigth to the conference
Sixteen representatives of international union organisations, including from China, the USA, Britain, Canada and Denmark are attending the AWU conference.
Shorten announces his resistance to the Governments plans to tidy up all those matters that are impinging on Australia’s growth and economy.
Mr Shorten said the conference would debate the AWU’s resistance to the Howard Government’s planned legislation to cut Award conditions, scale back unfair dismissal laws, weaken the Industrial Relations Commission and hinder union attempts to organise in workplaces.
In todays Australian. Kate Legge fires the first burst at the Governments plan to control the Disability Support Pension (DSP). She waxes long and emotional about Ivan, a 40 year old who has psychological and behavioural difficulties that has precluded him from working for the past 30 years. She makes this emotive call
Whenever the fraught issue of the DSP comes before cabinet, I think of Ivan and how he will manage if new rules are introduced tightening the eligibility criteria for a benefit that is more generous than the dole and therefore a preferable place to park yourself if employment in an increasingly competitive job market seems remote.
Be aware that the DSP issue will be long on emotion and very, very short of facts. Ivan’s case, on the face of it, seams reasonable and he will most probably manage quite well as he is unlikely to face change, but the Ivans are not the target. The targets are those with very iffy, unprovable disabilities who milk the public purse on the basis of stress and sore backs. Becaue the DSP offers more money and less scrutiny, people so inclined have bothered Doctors and Physciatrists ad nauseum until they sign the ‘No work – full pay’ chit. Kate alludes to the problem herself when she says the DSP is a;
…benefit that is more generous than the dole and therefore a preferable place to park yourself if employment in an increasingly competitive job market seems remote
The DSP was never intended to be a Dole payment and yet we have people, simply unemployed, exhibiting a preference for the more generous, less scrutinized DSP. The unemployed are not supposed to be able to pick and choose their avenue of access to the public purse. They should get the dole until they rejoin the workforce. It looks like being an interesting battle. Debate is needed to keep the Government concentrating on reform but I think by the time Howard has control of the Senate everything that needs to be said will have been said. Conversely we will hear and read a lot of irrelevant, emotive, socialist waffle that most Australians will consign to the bin of ‘less important’ things. Let’s join the fray and be done with it.
Politics

More troops for Iraq

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The Banshees are rallying. Howard is sending more troops to Iraq and tomorrows press is going to be a maelstrom of wailing. The ABC and SBS will be besides themselves but in spite of MSM’s fight to win the war for the terrorists the fight must go on. Japan welcomes Aussie troop plan Their primary task will be providing security for the Japanese engineering and support forces rebuilding roads and schools in the Al Mutthanna province of Southern Iraq. Labor opposes troop plan Kim Beasley, appeasing the Labour Left, made some sort of unclear statement about how Labour had said that we wouldn’t send anymore troops. He used the term ‘Australia’s position’ but I think he meant ‘The ALP’s position’.
“Australia’s position has been made, I thought, amply clear to our allies over the course of the last couple of years and that is, they have seen the upper levels of Australia’s engagement.
Why is it that people think war strategies don’t change? By definition, plans do change and this case I guess the Dutch troops just got sick of no drugs and having to wear their hair short to accomodate battle helmets. Greens, Dems slam plan Sigh! Bob Brown, in a brief visit to Earth, just gets it all wrong.
Senator Brown said in Perth: “The reason the UK and Japan aren’t sending more (of their own) troops is because it would create an uproar in London or Tokyo.”
I would have thought it was because we actually have so few troops in theatre that just maybe the US and the UK said something along the lines of ‘Listen! The Dutch are pulling the plug. How about you help a bit?’
“John Howard never told voters he would be sending 450 more troops to Iraq, never indicated that in the election campaign,” he said.
The need hadn’t arisen then you dropkick.
PRIME Minister John Howard misled voters at the last election by letting them believe Australia’s involvement in Iraq would be scaled down, Greens Senator Bob Brown said today.
A bit of wishful think there Bob. Your life may revolve around refusing to help in the war against terror and rallying your dreadlocked troops against capitalism but others realize that situations change and when they do, so do requirements. I look forward to tomorrow mornings ritual reading of the Australian. Should be fun.
War on Terror

Commemorating ANZAC Day

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If ever anyone was totally devoid of any understanding of the military or of world events it has to be Terry Lane, a hack employed by the Age. In this article Terry is concerned that ANZAC Day hasn’t dissappeared from Australia’s national events.
The anniversary of the Gallipoli invasion is becoming a pseudo-religious, jingoistic event on the national calendar. From a nadir in the 1960s and ’70s when it looked like fading away, Anzac Day has undergone a worrying renaissance
Dam thing just wont fade away. Bloody stupid Australians paying their respect to servicemen who have given their all to ensure the maintenance of a free and stable world.
Instead of reflecting on the event and saying:”Never again do we go blindly and sycophantically where an imperial ally orders us to go, attacking people with whom we have no quarrel and who have done us no wrong”, we have learned nothing.
I, too doubt the wisdom of attacking Gallipoli but it was but one campaign in a long war. Generals trained to fight Zulus with spears in their company and battalion command days, certainly didn’t respond to the arrival of machine guns with any sort of alacrity. The conduct of the war raises alot of questions but the final result doesn’t. Any understanding of Australia in 1914 must conclude that we didn’t see ourelves as Allies of Brittain but as grown up offspring rallying to protect a way of life. The same could be said in WW2. In the early days of the war, pre-Japan, it was reasonable for us to help in stopping Hitler. True, Europe is a long way from Australia but even then we didn’t live in a ‘Southern Seas’ vacuum. Imagine for a moment a world with Hitler on a roll. Frightening. ANZAC Day is not the time to reflect on Terry’s narrow view of the world. It is time to reflect on the sacrifice of thousands of Australians.
…the Turks put up with this insolent reminder of an attack on their territory with what must be either indifference, generosity of spirit or a perceived opportunity to make a lira out of these strange antipodeans who come to celebrate a tragic defeat
A couple of points, Terry. No one ‘celebrates a tragic defeat’ at Gallipoli. All involved, all those young people who visit and all those Australians back home ‘commemorate’ the sacrifice of the men involved. The Turks respect valour and 90 years after the event see nothing wrong with doing so openly. Unlike journalists, Soldiers of opposing Armies can lift above the events of their youth and pay respect in their maturity. Your’s is the only insolence I see, Terry. Reading between the lines Terry has a problem with Iraq and Bush/Howard’s answer to the terrorist problem and is using Gallipoli as a base to underline his superior take on world events. I wonder who it is that we have no quarrel with and who have done us no wrong? Could it be the world-wide Islamic based terrorist cells that are threatening the stability of the world? Is he suggesting that we have no quarrel with the people who murdered the Australians at Bali or the Americans, Australians and others at the WTC? I am constantly amazed at the people who think Iraq has nothing to do with Australia. Why do they insist we live in a vacuum when we clearly do not. Because we are seen as a Christian nation we are a target and because of this it behooves our nation to contribute to putting them down. It’s necessary to contribute as a part of the western world and for selfish reasons – to protect our own people. Terry sees Iraq and our minor contribution there as blindly and sycophantically going where we are told. I see it as paying insurance, trying to protect our people, trying to give Middle East states a democracy and in doing so slowly chip away at the basis for hatred of us westerners simply because we aren’t Moslems. I see it as a confident, mature Australia contributing to world peace. Stay home on ANZAC Day Terry. If you go out and mix with veterans while they are ‘commemorating’ their lost comrades, they may find cause to ‘celebrate’ your expeditious removal from the scene.
War on Terror

An email from Ireland

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My son, Steven, is currently teaching in London and heads off on a break during mid-term. ….From Holyhead i caught a massive ferry into Dublin. I am here currently and although i was a bit uncertain about coming here, i am glad i have. I went on a bus trip around town and visited the Guinness brewery and the Kilmainham gaol. The latter being the best thing i have seen on my travels too date. The goal can only be viewed with a guide and boy did she know her stuff. This prison is ‘the’ historical piece of Ireland. Established around 1800 when the act of union came into being and closing in the 1920’s upon the establishment of the irish free state. This prisons main purpose was to house the irish political leaders. Walking through their cells, seeing their graffitti and hearing the reasons for their imprisonment was very emotional stuff. All of the main leaders were put in here from the united irishman who lead the first rebellion in the late 1700’s to the leaders of the 1916 easter rebellion. The most gripping part was when we went into the court yard where all these amazing men and women were ‘murdered’. There you find a simple black cross and a flagpole with the irish flag waving. You feel the history in the place along with the deep sacrifices made for independence. Many people were in tears by this place and as she told of one of the 1916 leaders, dragged from hospital still in his wheelchair, stripped, blindfolded, tied, (with a) white cloth placed over his heart so the gunmen could aim at it, i too was moved. What was also fascinating about this place was the history of the irish civil war which i had no idea about. The terms of the treaty which brought ireland into being, apparently split ireland down the middle and led to a 10 month civil war. The stories from this period are so devasting words can’t describe how it must have affected the people involved in it. People here don’t talk about it, what with it being so recent, considering that people Nana’s age would have been involved, no wonder the conflict is still around. In the scope of history this thing happened yesterday. One of the most moving things i read was a letter from one of the political prisoners to his long time girlfriend, also in prison, asking for marriage as his last dying wish before being executed. The wedding took place in the prison chapel, he was handcuffed the entire time, no friends or family were present and after the wedding they shot him while she, being in the same prison, could hear it. During the potato famine things were so bad that people commited crimes to get in here, for then they were sure to get at least one meal a day. For a prison that was meant to house only 600 people during the famine it took in at least 10 000 prisoners. Thats right at least 10,000. People were in spaces so tight god only knows how the could have endured it. When they died, which thousands did in this place, they were buried under these massive pieces of stone. Body after body, no names and they had a type of acidic mixture thrown on them to stop disease and everything else. Till this day no body knows how many people are under those stones. It was also interested to hear about the last prisoner of the jail ending up as the countries first president. This place was left to ruin and was almost demolished, but a small group of people saved it – a story amazing in and of itself. The prison has been used for the setting of many films ‘The Italian Job’,’In the Name of the Father’ and numerous songs by u2 etc. This prison leaves you with the most deep seated rage and hatred for the English whose role in all this misery is both outrageous and undeniable. Yet, its the involvement of the irish time and time again in the carrying out of so much of this history as well that, beggers belief. That so many would work with the English against their own people is like imagining the Jews working as guards in the concentration camps. Yet after centuries of persecution they must have either seen no other way to survive, or were ignorant of the fact, regardless it is a most depressing history. I don’t think its for no reason that Dublin is home to many fine beer establishments and whiskey dist. After you leave these places the words by Parnell sink deep into your very being:
No man has a right to fix the boundary to the march of a nation. No man has a right to say to his country, “Thus far shalt go and no further”.
Which leads me on a lighter note, the Guinness brewery. This is the no.1 tourist destination in ireland. That’s right more people visit a brewery then any other attraction in the whole country. The exhibition was fantastic and the history was great, however i was more taken in by the history of their advertisements. Some of their ads are excellent, particularily the one’s using the circus animals. The originals are very pretty and i must admit that the toucans are absolutely delightful. At the top of the brewery there is a bar which has 360 degree views over Dublin. It is the place to see the city as well as have a pint of the black gold. The brewery is massive around 26 hec. and takes up a huge chunk of the city. The passion that is Ireland and her ‘troubles’ has visited one of us. I’ll reserve my opinion on Ireland and let the email stand on it’s own. The matter of young people going overseas to see for themselves the history they learnt at school and heard at the feet of their elders is one of the great institutuions around today. All of my kinder have travelled and they are all the better for it. Well written, don’t you think?
Travel

Semantics

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Interrogated, interviewed who gives a damn. We are at war and if we can’t interview/interrogate/harrass/threaten/grill/question/cross-examine/quiz/play bad music near/annoint with red textra/yell at/take stupid photos of/point at their dicks and laugh to try and stop them murdering women and kids and slitting throats of innocents then what are we allowed to do? ABC’s Lateline program can always find some recalcitrant to critisize Howard. It’s hardly world shattering although I know some Banshees, Luvvies of the ABC and others, short of life skills and experiences, thrive on every word; the bulk of the population are more worried about wages, interest rates, kids, kid’s education and other ‘real life’ worries. ABC see it as their role in life and that’s fine but the ALP, desperate to appear meaningful, are grabbing at straws and need to tell the Left to shutup while they try and regain some relevance in Australian politics.
War on Terror

Nostalgia

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“He would say that, wouldn’t he?” Not only did I close the last post with a line that only 50 plus year old readers would be familiar with, but I accredited it to the wrong woman. It was actually Mandy Rice-Davies, a friend of Christine, who uttered the immortal line “He would say that, wouldn’t he? Mandy was in court and when the defence claimed that Lord Astor had never paid to have sex with her she uttered the memorable line. The quote entered the English language and basically says nothing objective comes from sources with a vested interest. madyrice.jpg Mandy Rice-Davies My older readers are now smiling with the memory and the younger ones are wondering what the hell I’m on about. Stay with me. A Sydney reader, Terry M. pointed out my error and started me Googling to refresh my memory. Ah! Now I remember. In 1962 Christine Keeler, a striking beautiful young woman, had run away from home at the age of 16 and become a showgirl at Murray’s cabaret club in Soho, London, where she was employed “to walk around naked”. John Profumo was the British Secretary of State for War, married to actress Valerie Hobson, educated at Harrow and Oxford and had everything going for him other than his pronounced zipper problem. Christine met Mandy Rice-Davies and Stephen Ward, a fashionable London osteopath ,who enjoyed sketching the rich and famous and the three of them often spent weekends at a cottage belonging to one of Ward’s friends, Lord Astor. So did Profumo. Getting better, isn’t it? Profumo and Keeler had a short but torrid affair that most probably would have been ignored by the press except Christine had also slept with Eugene Ivanov, a patriotic Russian who was a naval attach? at the Soviet Embassy – he was also a spy . . . Back in Albany, WA, aged 15, I was undergoing my penultimate year at high school. A task made very difficult by hormones and testosterone bubbling away forcing maths and English into the background while I tried to come to grips with girls. In 1962 we didn’t even know what a girl looked like sans clothes. There was a magazine called ‘Adam’ that had women in suggestive poses but all fully clothed. The only pictures available were hunted out in the school library under ‘Travel’. The odd National Geographic had pictures of foreign woman in various states of undress with a naked, upper torso shot here and there. There, I’ve said it. My sex education was based on the National Geographic magazine. It could be said that men of my age were terribly disadvantaged in that we spent years of our youth imagining woman to be built like PNG Marys. The suckling pigs threw us a bit, but we learnt to ignore that. Albany is a port and I do recall a couple of us talking to sailors on leave and one of them flashing a set of ‘dirty post cards’ The memory is dim however, as the flashing was just that, a flash, and that type of thing needs protracted study. And then along came Christine and that photo in the chair. It was sheer pornography to us as it was very obvious she was NAKED! keeler2.jpg The press filled in the gaps and we were never the same. WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
John Profumo has kept a low profile since the sensational events of the 1960s, mainly occupying himself with charity work. He was named Commander of the British Empire in 1975 for his charitable work. After the scandal broke, the Naval attach? Ivanov was called back to Moscow and never heard from again. Keeler lives quietly in North London, and says she still feels “bewildered” by what happened. Rice-Davies is a grandmother and lives in America.
Mandy Rice -Davies is also quoted as saying;
My life has been one long descent into respectability.
in connection with reports that she was on social terms with Sir Denis Thatcher, husband of ex-prime minister Margaret Thatcher. My problem with women, maths and English eventually resolved itself but not for some years. In my writings in another venue I recorded this in 1964
We had four days off early in 1964 and three of us chose to go to Sydney. For all of us, all boys from the bush, the thought of maybe a million girls in a 30 or 40-square mile paddock must clear up the virginity problem.
It didn’t.
General Musings

‘Diddums’ Habib

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The Banshees now have their work cut out trying to make Habib’s appearance on last night’s 60 Minutes believable. In this morning’s Australian Foreign Minister Downer says words to the effect that ‘We don’t believe he is inncocent” and ‘He’ll be lucky to get his passport back’ thus reflecting most rational people’s views on the matter.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the Government still had concerns about Mr Habib and doubted whether he would succeed in his action in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to have his passport returned. “ASIO has great concerns about him. They have great concerns about his alleged involvement with al-Qa’ida,” he told the Nine Network.
The New York Times also has a piece from the weekend. (free subscription required) They’re happy to get the word ‘Torture’ in the headline but don’t come up with any new allegations. Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock is glad that at least Habib has now admitted that he was in Afghanistan
“The other matter that I think is new, is that the only claims I’ve ever made were that he was in Afghanistan and was believed, on advice from others that were there, that he trained with al-Qaeda,” Mr Ruddock said. “They are matters that last night he declined to reject outright and said that he might speak to a judge about. “That is new information because his representatives have always previously denied that he was in Afghanistan.”
Habib has only answered the charges of aiding and abbetting El Quaida with claims of dubious torture. Habib’s saga of undescribable torture includes being forced to look at photoshop piccies.
He also said he was forced to look at photographs of his wife’s face doctored to fit images of naked women placed next to Osama bin Laden.
Oh. My God. Such strength. How brave the man that can endure that level of torture and still live to talk about it. If someone flashed me a picture of a woman bearing a ‘photoshopped’ face of my wife standing along side Osama Bin Laden I doubt very much that I would think ‘Oh, my God. My wifes having it off with Osama’! ‘I’ll say whatever they want. This is inhumane’. I’d be thinking ‘Iv’e got these guys tossed if that’s the best they can come up with. I’ve had worse in training. Habib doesn’t deserve any more oxygen from the press and we need to go on but I wait with baited breath for the Banshees to take up his cause and quote everyting he says as gospel. As Christine Keeler said many years ago…”He would say that. Wouldn’t he?” Update: Not only did I close this post with a line that only 50 years old would be familia with, but I accredited to the wrong woman. It was actually Mandy Rice-Davies, a friend of Christine, who uttered the line “He would say that, wouldn’t he? For those who care about such things, the full story of the Profumo Affair, a British saga of sex, spies, lying Ministers lying to the house and misleading the British House of Commons nearly brought down a Government is here
War on Terror

Frivolous Friday

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The mind boggles – particularly considering my wife is the source of the pic – she claims she still has sore knuckles from being taught piano by the Sisters of Mercy at All Hallows, Brisbane. Barstools.jpg I want some! Stools, that is.
Uncategorized
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