Wendi Deng

Why do the Liberals keep harrassing Gold Coast schools?

Pacific Pines High School principal Bob Copeland nervously allowed the Liberal candidate for Fadden, Stuart Robert, on site yesterday...

Ms Bishop said when she got to Pacific Pines she was told by the school principal he had no prior knowledge of the visit.

While the principal was 'rather flustered' by the unexpected visit, he eventually let Ms Bishop and her entourage into the school grounds...

At Southport State High School about 30 minutes after the Pacific Pines visit, Moncrieff Liberal MP Steve Ciobo faced a similarly nervous school management...

It's not that long ago that Malcolm Turnbull and Steve Ciobo were causing similar problems:

"I'm here for the kids, I'm here to talk to the kids." - Malcolm Turnbull, yesterday.

Last I knew, kids under the age of eighteen did not have the right to vote. So why are our local politicians harrassing these kids and distracting their teachers from their work?

Bastards. Wankers. Etc.

Why are all our gallant war heroes from Iraq and Afghanistan killing themselves? The Australian rate of suicide seems to be on a par with the high US rate. And that's on the military's own figures, which only a true-blue A.J. would trust.

The irony is that the people responsible for inducing this wanton self-destruction are themselves suicide bombers...

Family First implodes:

The Family First candidate in the far north Queensland seat of Leichhardt says voters have a right to know the sexual preference of all candidates contesting the federal election.

Family First's Ben Jacobsen is obviously just trying to score points against his opponent, Charlie McKillop, who (rather interestingly) is not just a woman but also a Liberal (as if the name "Charlie" was not a giveaway). Jacobsen foolishly insists he is speaking generally about every candidate: get ready for another disendoresement, folks.

By sheer coincidence, Peter Costello just happens to be campaigning in the area today. So this is really a case of media-whoring B.S. Those who live by the sword, etc.

Hmmn. Why on earth would somebody at The World Bank run a Google search on:

crikey "steven ciobo"

Whoever did it hit this site. Are world financial markets are trembling at the thought of Stephen Mayne's decision to challenge Peter Costello in Higgins? But what's that got to do with my local MP, Steven Ciobo? Stay tuned...

UPDATE: Could it be related to this old Crikey story on ID cards? Ciobo made a rather strange trip to London and Washington back in January, ostensibly as part of a backbench revolt against Joe Hockey's ID Card proposals. The Brisbane Sunday Mail blamed Hockey for blowing the whistle on Ciobo's trip. And the whole sorry episode apparently sank Ciobo's chances of a promotion to parliamentary secretary.

I'm wondering if Ciobo was REALLY investigating ID Cards on that trip...

But Bob Ellis is unimpressed:

Newspoll is not called 'the Fox News of statistics' for nothing. Like Fox News, it serves Rupert Murdoch. Like Bill O'Reilly, it tells him what he wants to hear. And what does Rupert Murdoch want to hear? Well, that the voters are very volatile, for one thing. The Labor numbers go up to 58 before the Great Debate, then down to 54 after it. On the weekend when, in the greatest gatherings in human history, the West protests against the Iraq war, and it's known that most Australians oppose it, the vote for Howard goes up. When he's found to have lied about Children Overboard, the vote for Howard goes up. When Howard seems on his last legs, he gets the good news he needs. From Newspoll, the preferred Murdoch pollster.

(h/t nahum)

Murdoch has just done a very interesting deal with Georgian media tycoon Badri Patarkatsishvili. News Corp will take over Patarkatsishvili's highly influential media group, Imedi, for one year, while he concentrates on bringing down the government.

"There were a lot of accusations that Imedi was an opposition channel and we thought it would be very difficult for journalists to stay neutral in such a situation," Irakly Rukhadze, a representative of the private equity Salford Fund which look's after Patarkatsishvili's stake in Imedi. "So, the final decision was made and the Georgian side handed over its shares to its American partners into management."

Oh yes, bringing down the government looks ever so much more respectable when Rupert Murdoch controls the media, doesn't it?

NB: Georgia just happens to host a pipeline pumping oil from the Caspian Sea to Europe. It is a major "soft power" battleground in the New Cold War.

Come fly with me... As oil breaks the $100/barrel mark, let's go first to Poland:

Polish Prime Minister-designate Donald Tusk said his future government would seek to end the nation's military mission in Iraq next year.

Poland has 900 troops in southern Iraq. 81 percent of Poles oppose the military mission in Iraq. A US military base in Poland is a critical part of the Star Wars missile shield.

Next, Japan, which is terminating its support role in Afghanistan:

Over the six years of its engagement, Japan's Maritime Self Defence Force tankers have provided more than Y22 billion ($208 million) worth of fuel, mainly to US ships.

But recently the fuel has all gone to the Pakistan navy - in effect, an operational subsidy to keep the Pakistanis involved.

Portugal is also cutting its military presence in Afghanistan by 90% next year. They will leave 15 soldiers and a transport plane.

Meanwhile, the Taliban are set to re-take Kandahar. Turkey has launched attacks inside Iraq. The Iraqis are closing down power plants due to lack of fuel. Israel is cutting off fuel supplies to Gaza and preparing for another major incursion...

Who is responsible for this parlous state of affairs?

A new Zogby poll shows that 52% of likely voters in the United States would support a U.S. military strike against Iran. 53% believe it is likely that the U.S. will be involved in a military strike against Iran before the next presidential election.

Meanwhile, the new candidate for US Attorney General refuses to condemn water-boarding as torture, and the head of the CIA still insists that renditions and torture are important weapons in the long war against, well... whatever.

I'm glad I don't follow US politics as closely as I used to, because it is infinitely depressing. The problem is, the rest of the world pays the price for their greed, stupidity and ignorance. Hey, why did we invade Iraq anyway?

Let's end our little trip - fittingly - in Washington, where Karen Hughes, a long-time Bush insider, is quitting her job. And what was that job? Ah yes:

Bush and Rice had picked Hughes two years ago to retool the way the United States sells its policies, ideals and views overseas. A former television reporter and media adviser, Hughes' focus has been to change the way the United States engages and responds to criticism or misinformation in the Muslim world...

Polls show no improvement in the world's view of the U.S. since Hughes took over.

After a little prompting, 49% of my readers have agreed with me that John W. Howard is a War Criminal. Another 45% politely describe him as just "a chronic liar, and a Big Business patsy". Which prompts me to offer the following question(s) for Mister Rudd:

Will a Rudd Labor government open investigations into the Howard government's criminal activities over the past eleven years, including the cherry-picking and fabrication of intelligence used to justify our involvement in the war in Iraq? If Mr Howard's own role in this decision is determined to be in contravention of international law, will you hand him over to the International Criminal Court for prosecution?

Will you also re-open the AWB enquiry, and give a new independent commissioner complete freedom to pursue all areas and persons of interest? Will you bring criminal charges against any ex-government ministers who have used their positions to block public access to scientific evidence on critically important issues such as terrorism and climate change?

Maybe a good question for a journalist if we get another TV debate?

Tony Abbott turns up late to his National Press Club debate:

Ms Roxon finished her address and had fielded several questions from journalists by the time Mr Abbott arrived...

Mr Abbott says he had to be at a policy announcement this morning, and was not able to get to the debate any faster.

Check out the reaction from viewers at LP.

That is just contempt for the public. That's the reason the Libs are going to lose this election, and it's also the reason why our nation's public hospitals are in such a bloody horrible state.

The state visit to Britain by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is turning into a PR nightmare. If it is possible to vomit words onto paper, then Robert Fisk surely comes close:

The sad, awful truth is that we fete these people, we fawn on them, we supply them with fighter jets, whisky and whores. No, of course, there will be no visas for this reporter because Saudi Arabia is no democracy. Yet how many times have we been encouraged to think otherwise about a state that will not even allow its women to drive? Kim Howells, the Foreign Office minister, was telling us again yesterday that we should work more closely with the Saudis, because we "share values" with them. And what values precisely would they be, I might ask?

The one obvious story that Fisk does not mention is Osama Bin Laden, who embraced terrorism as a direct result of his contempt of this cosy Saudi-US-UK relationships. This is an area where dialogue with Al Quaeda is clearly possible, if we are prepared to embrace the idea. It is our governments and our business leaders - not we, the people - who have a vested interest in perpetuating this obscene arms, oil and cash merry-go-round.

This is from The Guardian's leader:

Morality clearly lies with the protesters expected to gather in London today, whose criticism of Saudi Arabia's human rights record is well placed. The Foreign Office itself does not question it, listing concern at "aspects of the judicial system; corporal and capital punishment; torture; discrimination against women and non-Muslims; and restrictions on freedom of movement, expression, assembly and worship". This week, it says, is not the time to discuss such issues...

The government is sticking to a policy sustained since the 1980s: "Do nothing to upset the Saudi royal family." It must go down as one of Britain's most dubious but most long-lived goals. It has not done much to help the people of Saudi Arabia and nor has it prevented the spread of terrorism: Osama bin Laden is Saudi; so were 15 of the suicide bombers on September 11 2001. Realpolitik is supposed to produce benefits. As Britain's royal and political elite pay homage to the ruler of an intolerant, brutal and theocratic regime, it is worth asking exactly what those benefits are.

UK public opinion has turned decisively against the Saudis (and the Labor government) since a series of damning revelations about cosy deals involving BAE Systems:

Last month the company completed a deal to sell 72 Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft to Saudi Arabia for £4.43bn. That followed the attorney general's notorious decision to call off a fraud investigation into BAE's previous al-Yamamah contract, declaring that "it has been necessary to balance the need to maintain the rule of law against the wider public interest". This summer the Guardian reported, too, that BAE Systems had paid hundreds of millions of pounds to Prince Bandar bin Sultan, now King Abdullah's security adviser.

Meanwhile, here in Oz, we barely raise an eyebrow when Defence Minister Brendan Nelson awards no-bid contracts for even more useless military hardware.

Don't laugh. GI Joe is quitting the US military:

Paramount Pictures and Hasbro, which makes GI Joe toys, have reportedly discussed the challenges of marketing a film about the US military at a time when the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have sunk America's standing in foreign opinion polls. In a move that has horrified an unlikely alliance of comic book fans and conservative commentators, GI Joe is now to become an acronym for "Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity", with its star representing a multinational force. Paramount has even mooted basing GI Joe at a headquarters in Brussels.

Hoo boy! I'm sure Iraqi audiences will lap it up.

The photo above shows GI Joe on his last tour of duty in Falluja.

So is John Howard a War Criminal? I'm surprised to see that a small majority of my readers disagree with me on this. With less than 24 hours left to vote in my online poll, most readers seem to think that Howard is just "a chronic liar and a Big Business patsy".

So for anyone still not sure, or wanting to change their vote, let me spell it out for you.

At the end of WWII, the civilised nations of this earth - including Australia - signed off on a bunch of international laws which were intended to ensure that nobody would ever again be able to invade another soveriegn nation with impunity. Four and a half years ago, however, Australian troops were on the ground in Iraq before war had even been formally declared. We supported George W. Bush's criminal invasion of Iraq based on fabricated WMD evidence that was deliberately "fixed around the policy" of invasion.

That is a War Crime. It really is that simple.

There were also international postwar laws agreed on the treatment of prisoners. I would argue that the whole concept of this bogus "war" on terror is a legal and linguistic farce, but given that our government has embraced it wholeheartedly, they ought to have given proper protection, in accordance with these laws, to any and all alleged prisoners of war, including David Hicks and Mahmoud Habib. According to the Howard government's own logic, and the laws to which our nation is a signatory, not to have done so is a War Crime.

Nobody is asking Kevin Rudd if he will open investigations into these matters, if and when he wins government, because nobody seriously expects him to answer the question honestly. Furthermore, the invasion of Iraq was largely orchestrated by the US industrial-military complex to which Kevin Rudd PM will also be beholden. But you can be damned sure that many of us - myself included - will continue pushing for justice on these matters.

This is an issue that will follow John Howard all the way to the grave.

Costello can't say, won't say:

Mr Howard told ABC TV on Monday night that he and Mr Costello had an "agreed agreement" on the transition but refused to say how far into the next term it would happen.

Mr Costello on Tuesday also declined to detail the agreement or whether he would challenge for the leadership within 18 months after the November 24 federal election.

As the humble Aussie dollar soars towards parity with the greenback, and oil nudges even closer to US$100 a barrel, it's becoming increasingly likely that a global financial "tsunami" (of the sort Peter Costello predicted) could yet swing the election. Still four weeks to go, and the warning beacons are already going off.

Iran could well be the key. Max Hastings today has some good analysis of the latest US scare-mongering:

The Iranians have oil, which the world wants to buy. The EU is eager to build a gas pipeline there, to diminish its dependence on Russian energy. Beijing and Moscow show no interest in helping Bush face down the Iranians...

Few strategists dispute either that Iranian revolutionaries are playing a prominent role in frustrating the stabilisation of Iraq, or that Iran is doing its utmost to build nuclear weapons. Doubts focus on what can be done about these things. Europeans will continue to support diplomatic and economic measures adopted by the UN, designed to exhibit the world's dismay at Iran's behaviour. There is chronic scepticism, however, about such initiatives. Next month the UN will debate further sanctions, but neither Russia nor China will support tough action.

President Vladimir Putin last week compared Bush's behaviour towards Iran with that of a madman "running about with a razor blade in his hand". Not many Europeans suppose that it is desirable for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. Yet most think this almost inevitable, and preferable to the ghastly geopolitical consequences of adopting military action to stop it.

The seven years of the Bush presidency have witnessed a haemorrhage of American moral authority of a kind quite unknown in the 20th century. Even in the darkest days of the cold war, and indeed in the Cuban missile crisis, most people around the world retained a faith in the fundamental benign nature of American purposes. This has been lost in Iraq...

Ahmadinejad and the Revolutionary Guard need US enemies to justify their idiocies at home and mischief-making in Iraq. At every turn the Bush administration obliges them, by seeming to welcome confrontation. The rival governments in Tehran and Washington deserve each other. It is another matter as to whether their peoples, and the world, do so. But relations between Iran and the US are likely to get much worse before either nation changes leadership and gives peace a chance.

At ICH, Michael S. Rozeff spells out the nightmare scenario we now face:

The U.S. encourages Israel to bomb the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran. Russia attempts to restrain an Iranian response but fails. Iran responds in any of many ways, such as launching missiles on Israel, firing on shipping in the Straits of Hormuz, mining the Straits of Hormuz, sending troops into Iraq, or allying its military with Hezbollah and attacking Israel from Lebanon.

The U.S., citing Iran’s aggressions (that will be the story), launches a full-scale attack on Iran designed to devastate the country. This attack has actually been planned by the U.S. for years. Syria is unable to maintain neutrality and quickly becomes a battleground between Iran and Israel.

The price of oil by this point has already soared to $200 a barrel. The U.S. begins to use its strategic reserve and to divert Iraqi production. Russia responds by taking steps to prevent its oil production from reaching the U.S. China responds by cutting off its support of the U.S. Treasury market. Venezuela halts oil shipments to the U.S. The first stages of WWIII are economic warfare designed to cripple the U.S. and halt its war-making capacity.

The U.S., unable to finance its deficits and fund its sovereign debt, is forced into raising interest rates drastically in order to borrow. The Fed is forced to print money. An inflationary spiral occurs. Meanwhile the high interest rates and high oil prices, not to mention the shock of a spreading conflict, drive the U.S. economy into severe decline. The U.S. attempts to raise taxes in order to fund itself, further crippling the economy. Gold soars to $1,500–$2,000 an ounce.

The U.S. attempts to bolster its military forces. The draft is reinstated. The severity of the emergency allows Bush and Cheney to assume emergency powers and begin a dictatorship. Elections are postponed.

The U.S. collapses.

Francois Furstenberg provides a little history lesson for the Howardistas:

They divided the world between pro- and anti-Revolutionaries - the defenders of liberty versus its enemies. The French Revolution, as they understood it, was the great event that would determine whether liberty was to prevail on the planet or whether the world would fall back into tyranny and despotism.

The stakes could not be higher, and on these matters there could be no nuance or hesitation. One was either for the Revolution or for tyranny.

By 1792, France was confronting the hostility of neighboring countries, debating how to react. The Jacobins were divided. On one side stood the journalist and political leader Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville, who argued for war.

Brissot understood the war as preventive - "une guerre offensive," he called it - to defeat the despotic powers of Europe before they could organize their counter-Revolutionary strike. It would not be a war of conquest, as Brissot saw it, but a war "between liberty and tyranny."

Pro-war Jacobins believed theirs was a mission not for a single nation or even for a single continent. It was, in Brissot's words, "a crusade for universal liberty."

Brissot's opponents were skeptical. "No one likes armed missionaries," declared Robespierre, with words as apt then as they remain today...

Confronted by a monarchical Europe united in opposition to revolutionary France - old Europe, they might have called it - the Jacobins rooted out domestic political dissent. It was the beginning of the period that would become infamous as the Terror.

Among the Jacobins' greatest triumphs was their ability to appropriate the rhetoric of patriotism - Le Patriote Français was the title of Brissot's newspaper - and to promote their political program through a tightly coordinated network of newspapers, political hacks, pamphleteers and political clubs...

Though it has been a topic of much attention in recent years, the origin of the term "terrorist" has gone largely unnoticed by politicians and pundits alike. The word was an invention of the French Revolution, and it referred not to those who hated freedom, nor to non-state actors, nor of course to "Islamofascism."

A terroriste was, in its original meaning, a Jacobin leader who ruled France during la Terreur.

This should be good for a laugh, if nothing else: Alexander Downer is going to debate Robert McClelland on Nov 15th. A pity Bob Brown won't be on screen to highlight the screaming deficiencies in our US-dictated foreign policy:

"We ought not be in Afghanistan because the Bush administration backed by John Howard made a huge strategic error there at the start of this decade when they withdrew troops from Afghanistan, having taken over the country, got rid of the Taliban and went to the invasion of Iraq...

"And 50 per cent of Australians, according to one recent opinion poll, also want to see Australian troops withdrawn from Afghanistan and deployed in our own region where we have got our own problems and our own instabilities, not under the direction of the Bush administration which has made such a mess of international strategy in the last decade."

It's not often Paul Sheehan does film reviews. But this is different:

Clooney has embarked on a finely calibrated campaign to offset the damage done to America's ideals and reputation by its President, George Bush...

As US policy in the Middle East reveals itself as an unfolding failure of common sense, it is fair to argue that in the global marketplace of ideas George Clooney, a mere actor, has developed more moral authority than the occupant of the White House.

There is a lesson here for Australia. In terms of governance there is no obvious reason to throw out the government on November 24. Employment is high, the economy buoyant, inflation low, the budget in surplus, taxes modest, personal wealth rising. Apparently that is not enough. It appears to be the realm of moral leadership where politics in this country has become dangerously interesting for the Government, especially for the Prime Minister, whose best friend in the wider world happens to be George Bush.

Or as Charles Sullivan puts it today, in a long rant against the MSM:

Truth is simple and uncomplicated, whereas lies and distortions are complex. Truth stands strong and unwavering without artificial support; lies and propaganda require elaborate schemes and constant propping up, the mask of deception.

More of us must learn the language of truth; we must be its faithful guardians, if we are to be valuable citizens in this world, rather than the useful idiots of empire. By holding truth and justice in the highest regard, we demonstrate that another world is not only possible, but highly probable.

And on the subject of truth and other worlds, let me just remind any Christian rightwingers that Jesus said:

I am the way, the truth and the light.

Who would be a whistle-blower in Bush's USA? The House Judiciary Committee set up a project encouraging Department of Justice staffers to come forward with their stories about the Bush administration. Then they sent all their informants an email, explaining the careful security measures which were in place to safeguard their anonymity. Problem was, they CC'd everybody on the list instead of BCC'ing them! But that's not all - included on the list of over 150 email addresses was... vice_president@whitehouse.gov!

Accident? I think not.

Now this guys is a real wanker! Dumped Family First candidate Andrew Quah explains away pornographic pics of himself by saying:

"I might have been drunk off my face or my political enemies might have drugged me."

The SMH article is just hilarious:

One photo shows him exposing his private parts as he takes a picture of himself in a mirror.

"But that's not my penis," he said. So whose was it?

"Look, maybe somebody photoshopped it, and put another one on the photo," he said. "I can tell you, it's not me. I know these things. But really, I can't remember … All I know, I have been humiliated."

So too has Family First.

To see what all the fuss is about, click on the images at The Other Cheek blog.

For anyone (like the PM) who still pretends the Gitmo hearings were not a farce, this has gotta be the clincher: scathing criticism from a US military lawyer who actually served on dozens of Gitmo tribunals.

The whistleblower, an army major inside the military court system which the United States has established at Guantanamo Bay, has described the detention of one prisoner, a hospital administrator from Sudan, as "unconscionable".

His critique will be the centrepiece of a hearing on 5 December before the US Supreme Court when another attempt is made to shut the prison down. So nervous is the Bush administration of the latest attack – and another Supreme Court ruling against it – that it is preparing a whole new system of military courts to deal with those still imprisoned.

Jeebus:

Reports to NSW child welfare authorities have "exploded" in the last five years, with one in 15 children now in need of care and protection.

To quote Confuscius:

"If you govern the people legalistically and control them by punishment, they will avoid crime, but have no personal sense of shame. If you govern them by means of virtue and control them with propriety, they will gain their own sense of shame, and thus correct themselves."

I hear Australian prison populations have increased by 50% since Howard came to power, even though there has been no corresponding rise in criminal activity. Maybe the bad guys are slipping under the radar?

I would have thought used toilet paper would be more appropriate, but whatever!

A pro-democracy group based in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai is urging people all over the world to "post, deliver or fling" their undergarments to Burma's international embassies.

"The Burma military regime is not only brutal but very superstitious. They believe that contact with a woman's panties or sarong can rob them of their power," the Lanna Action for Burma group said on its website.

The address you want is:

22 Arkana St
Yarralumla, ACT 2600
(02) 6273 3811

PS: Don't bother washing them!

So another Aussie soldier is dead.

Prime Minister John Howard says Sgt Locke died serving the "just cause" of liberty and freedom.

Mr Howard says the fallen soldier's death reminds all Australians of their debt of gratitude to the men and women in the defence force.

Labor leader Kevin Rudd has praised Sgt Locke for making the ultimate sacrifice and says he does not want to politicise the incident.

Well, fuck that. Of course the whole thing is political: we wouldn't even be there if it wasn't for Bush and Howard. Sergeant Locke would not be dead if Bush had accepted the Taliban's offer to hand over Bin Laden. And even if you support the misguided military intervention in Afghanistan, it's now obvious to any serious observers that the whole thing has become a massive, politics-driven cock-up -ever since attention, funds and forces were diverted to Iraq.

Even the UN's proposed new "super envoy" to Afghanistan now says the war there is lost. And the head of the UK Armed Forces says the disastrous war there will drag on for many years - until a political solution is found:

"There is a common misperception that the issues in Afghanistan, and indeed elsewhere around the world, can be dealt with by military means. That's a false perception. The military is a key, an essential element in dealing with those problems, but by and large these problems can only be resolved politically."

But our political leaders cannot even speak the truth on these matters. So meanwhile, the horror drags on, day after day, for the ordinary citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq, to whom so much was promised, and so little delivered.