Wendi Deng

Good call:

As a liberal voter in QLD i can see the similaraities between nelson and flegg. He does nothing but bore me and bring down the dwindling reputation of the coalition.

Ah! I love the smell of defeat in the evening...

I'm always amazed at how often a Big New Idea in politics just happens to be simultaneously canvassed in Washington, London and Canberra.

Today Kevin Rudd is reviewing the Australian tax system and contemplating raising the GST from 10% in the next budget. Meanwhile, Gordon Brown is facing another revolt over his government's plans to abolish the 10% lower tax bracket in the coming budget:

The 22% tax rate is coming down to 20%, and the 10% tax rate for lower earners is being abolished altogether - forcing more than five million workers up into the 20% tax bracket.

And look what's suddenly being discussed on FOX News and the Wall Street Journal:

Gigot: But on that point, the optional flat tax does seam to be at least a big step in the direction of tax reform - fundamental tax reform, which is a big idea. And of course would be something he [McCain] could run on as a reformer and not just somebody representing the status quo.

How would that work, John, the optional flat tax?

Fund: Well, it's been done in various other places, including Hong Kong, which as you know is economically booming. What it basically says is, you agree to give up all deductions, and you get a flat rate, 15%.

Gigot: Presumably lower rate.

Fund: Right, much lower rate. And you basically solve the paperwork problems. You don't spend time worrying about keeping records on every little bit...

Is this just a frenzied, borg-like, panic response to the latest global financial problems? Or do the backroom guys in the USA, UK and Australia actively collaborate on co-ordinating their governments' Budget strategies every year?

What about other issues like foreign policy? How much is being decided in secret by unelected global elites?

Who knew?

The US has the world's largest penal population with some 10 per cent of the adult population behind bars.

Can you believe that? One in ten US adults is in jail! That's just absurd. No, it's worse that absurd - it's criminal! How do you boast of having a functioning Democracy when one in ten adults is in jail?

UPDATE: Proving that even anal-retentive pond scum have their uses, Tim Blair picks up the AFP error:

The actual figure is closer to one per cent.

The USA does still have by far the highest incarceration rate in the world, of course, and it has been growing rapidly, particularly for blacks:

Nearly 4.7 per cent of African-American men are behind bars in the United States. That percentage grows to nearly 12 per cent for black men aged 25 to 29-years-old.

That is still an absolute disgrace. The latest US figures are over one percent, with around one in 30 either in jail, on parole or on bail. The cost to government is over $55 billion per year.

NB: I assume it was my criticisms over at BlairBolt Watch that got Timmeh keeping an eye on me. Is he scared?

UPDATE 2: This story has been picked up at BlairBoltWatch and I have posted two opening comments:

Look on the bright side - Timmeh linked to a story about prison guards opening fire on a race riot which erupted after neo-Nazis celebrated Hitler’s birthday, and he never even mentioned any of those pet topics. That must have taken a lot of self-restraint.

Maybe he is learning?

Or maybe I just don’t hear dog whistles when they are pitched that high.

And still in moderation:

Actually, I am rather curious about how Timmeh came upon this little story...

He links to the AFP story, exposes their error, and then writes: "UPDATE. A lefty fell for it."

The link goes to my blog. Now, let's ignore for a moment how you can "fall for" an error which was neither a trick nor a joke. I read this AFP story earlier today and wrote a quick, outraged blog post about it. If I'd had more time I might have realized the journalistic error, but I didn't - my bad, I readily admit.

But there's Timmeh waiting to pounce on my mistake. I challenge his minions to look through my blog and find any other such glaring factual (factual!) errors. I'll wager they are few and far between.

So here's what I'm thinking: Timmeh noticed my criticisms of him and Big Rupe here, at blairboltwatch, and elsewhere, and has been keeping an eye on my blog, waiting for an opportunity to pounce. But he does it in his own clever, snarky way, pretending that he found the story himself, and THEN noticed my link. Vengeance accomplished?

Alternatively, it's possible that Tim's real target was YOUR ABC, which carried the story which I originally linked to (now updated to fix the error, I notice). Maybe Blair is monitoring ABC News to gather more "evidence" of perceived leftwing anti-US bias? That would explain why his post links to the original AFP story, which he would have had to track down to check that it was an AFP error, not an ABC one.

Hmmn?

Hey BTW, anyone wanna buy a painting?

How's this for an offer you can't refuse:

Last year the US Army granted waivers to allow 511 convicted criminals to join up, almost double the number from the year before.

Almost 250 Army and Marine recruits had convictions for burglary while 130 had been charged with drug offences, excluding marijuana.

There were also a handful of waivers given for those convicted of rape and sexual assault, along with terrorist threats, including bomb threats.

More here:

The felons accepted into the army and marines included ... two convicted of indecent behaviour with a child [and] 19 arsonists.

So we have known terrorists fighting the (ahem) "war" on terror, convicted rapists, paedophiles and arsonists roaming the streets of Falluja, and drug addicts in control of Afghanistan's poppy fields. Lovely stuff.

How did it come to this? Just ask the criminals in charge, and the fools who elected them.

As Juan Cole said:

It is an index of the despotism to which the United States has fallen victim that we must hope for other, more civilized countries, to try our war criminals. Why can't public officials be prosecuted for violating the Bill of Rights' guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment? Why can't an International Military Tribunal be set up as at Nuremberg?

But it's not just Uncle Sam, is it?

Aussie SAS troops drew first blood in Iraq, Aussie officials were present in torture sessions, Aussie lawyers, politicians, media and military voices loudly supported the US re-interpretation of the Geneva Conventions, the Howard government silenced dissenting opinions in the intelligence community, we have backed US War Crimes to the hilt (including the claimed right to further “pre-emptive” wars and the habitual targeting of civilian areas)…

And to all intents and purposes, given the continuing official silence on these issues, we remain beholden to the US neocon vision. We still pretend the invasion was legal!

How do we "move on" with these horrendously important issues unresolved?

When I saw this BBC story about how Obama's old classmates used to call him "Barry", I thought that might be a nice antidote to the poisonous US media attacks on his name.

"At that time, here in Indonesia, all the parents pushed their kids: 'You have to become a doctor' or 'You have to become an engineer'," she told me. "But he wrote that he'd like to be a president. So we thought, 'Oh in your dreams!'"

Well, a lot has changed since those days. Barry, as he was known then, is now campaigning to be the Democratic nominee for exactly that job.

During high school the name further evolved into Barry O'Bomber - because he had a great jump shot:

Back then, Obama never went anywhere without his basketball, a ball given to him by his absent father...

His old coach remembers the last time he saw Obama in person a few years ago. He says he didn't want to bother the newly famous politician so he stayed off to the side.

"Part way through his speech," McLachlin said, "he kind of caught my eye in the back of the chapel and said, 'Coach Mac, how you doing? You know I used to play basketball here you guys and I really wasn't as good as I thought I was. Was I coach?' and we sort of laughed about it."

The "bomber" nickname might actually help him win votes off McCain. Let's just hope Obama doesn't live up to the moniker if and when he gets the keys to the White House.

It's hard to take the official military figures on suicide seriously, but there are evidently a lot of them.

Sergeant Lianne Ingle met a young soldier in a Townsville club early last year. He told her he wanted to kill himself:

She said she remembered striking up a conversation by telling the man he reminded her of singer Nick Cave, but that she had never been a fan of Cave's because his morose music made her feel like "topping herself."

About eight months later - three days after his 19th birthday - Ashley Baker locked himself inside a toilet cubicle at a defence base in Dili and apparently shot himself three times.

You have to wonder what drives these kids into the Army in the first place, don't you?

I asked my 11-year-old boy about anti-Emo graffiti the other day:

"What are Emos?" I asked him.
"Slash-your-wrists," he replied with evident contempt.

In the Welsh town of Bridgend, Sean Rees, a "happy-go-lucky" 19-year-old, killed himself yesterday after a night out with friends.

He is believed to be the 19th person under the age of 27 to have reportedly killed themselves in the Bridgend area since the start of last year.

A local councillor complained:

"We keep on asking why these young people are dying but we are not getting any answers."

Is this the temper of the times? Or have things ever been thus?

In ancient Egypt, somebody once wrote a text which has survived till this day:

I opened my mouth to my soul, that I might answer what it had said: "This is too much for me today..."

My soul opened its mouth to me that it might answer what I had said: "If you think of burial, it is a sad matter... Listen to me; behold, it is good for men to hear. Follow the happy day and forget care..."

I opened my mouth to my soul that I might answer what it had said: ... "To whom can I speak today? Hearts are rapacious and everyone takes his neighbour's goods. Gentleness has perished and the violent man has come down on everyone.

To whom can I speak today? Men are contented with evil and goodness is neglected everywhere.

To whom can I speak today? He who should enrage a man by his ill deeds, he makes everyone laugh by his wicked wrongdoing.

To whom can I speak today? Men plunder and every man robs his neighbour.

To whom can I speak today? The wrongdoer is an intimate friend and the brother with whom one used to act is become an enemy.

To whom can I speak today? None remember the past...

Death is in my sight today
Like the smell of myrrh,
Like sitting under an awning on a windy day.

Death is in my sight today
Like the perfume of lotuses,
Like sitting on the shore of the Land of Drunkenness..."

What my soul said to me: "Cast complaint upon the peg, my comrade and brother; make offering on the brazier and cleave to life, according as I have said. Desire me here, thrust the West aside, but desire that you may attain the West when your body goes to earth, that I may alight after you are weary; then will we make an abode together."

NB: As the sun sets in the West, so the ancient Egyptians believed that their souls too would migrate to The West after death.

Rupert's Zionist Crusade continues apace. Newsweek has a 5-page story on Murdoch's looming "war" with the New York Times (which they suggest New York billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg will soon buy, now that he's given up on the GOP nomination).

Along with much of the rest of old media, the Times has been losing advertising dollars to the Internet hand over fist, though its Web site is a big hit with readers.

Of course it didn't help that NYT put all their best columnists behind a propaganda firewall for a few years. It didn't help that they never really opoligized for Judith WMD Miller. It doesn't help that they continue to operate as GOP shills, promoting an economic agenda that is hastening their own collapse...

Late last week its parent company reported a first-quarter loss of $335,000; the Times's own business section said it was "one of the worst periods the company and the newspaper industry have seen." Advertising, its lifeblood, fell almost 11 percent, "the sharpest drop in memory," the Times wrote.

Murdoch buying the WSJ and then delivering the killer blow to the Old Gray Lady - who could have imagined it eh? And of course the editorial influence at the WSJ is already well underway:

Rather than entrust the job of all this to subordinates, Murdoch has been devoting half his time since acquiring Dow Jones to reshaping the paper. He has become a regular and jarring presence in the Journal newsroom: ever since he appeared unannounced on Easter — to, as he puts it, "set an example" — top editors have been dragging themselves into the Journal's headquarters across from Ground Zero on Sundays. "What sets Rupert apart is that after he's made a major acquisition, he goes in and works it and gets it running the way he wants it to, and then leaves managers in place," says Arthur Siskind, senior adviser to Murdoch.

For example, here's how Murdoch handled the recent sex scandal involving Eliot Spitzer:

As the story was breaking online at NewYorkTimes.com, Murdoch was stuck on his crippled jet in a hangar at a private airport in Palm Beach, Fla. With his wife, Wendi, looking on, Murdoch frantically worked the phones, bombarding New York Post editor Col Allan and Fox News chief Roger Ailes. "I couldn't believe it," Murdoch said later of Spitzer's scandalous predicament. "Naturally, I was on the phone: 'What do you know, and how are you going to treat the story?' " Murdoch was so caught up in the moment that he even sketched a mock layout of how the story might appear in The Wall Street Journal.

But of course his editors are like, totally independent:

The Times, like numerous other media outlets, has been critical of Murdoch for allegedly using his media properties to pursue personal business and political ends—a contention that Murdoch vehemently rejects. "I've never, ever done that," he says angrily. "I challenge anyone to show that I did."

Murdoch insists he only pulled the BBC World News out of his Star TV coverage in China for "purely financial reasons" and not to curry favour with Beijing's mandarins. But like one exec says:

"It's never a good time to have to confront someone like Murdoch, who doesn't care about making money on a particular product."

It's not about the money. It's about the massive doses of endless self-adulation that go with such sheer, unrestrained power.